Jaswinder Bolina

 

 

At War with the Cynics

 

O, night! I’m too sad to sing

my petulant arias, I can’t stand

the sound of my own blubbering!

O, night, make me something

other than I am now mopey

though the chipper crickets

play leggy violins inside you,

the owls are stout concertinas

puffed up hooting as your zephyrs

xylophone across gator spines

in the glades, then rush up

to tease me in my bleak office

like bawdy ditties from faraway

festivals I’m not privy to!

O, night, I’m tired of talking

about myself, tell me more

about you with your blue

Neptunes and red Betelgeuses,

your eternities with too little

inside them! O, night, must I be

lonely and mad forever? At least

we have each other, O, night,

like the baby has his blankie

coiled all around him,.

but even the baby is tangled

up in my sorrow, O, night,

I have too much to love

and not long enough to love it!

O, night, make me something

other than I am in my incessant

glooming in the dappled dark

of Florida where the parrots roost dopey

in the bosoms of gumbo limbo

trees until squawking morning

when they brunch on maggots and seeds,

bomb lilied shits upon our sedans,

then soar off to Bimini!

 

 

 

Devorah Baum

Rebecca Priestley