Vol 2 No 1 2008
The Safest Place
With age comes loss of critical faculties.
We can no longer make sense.
Nailed to the cross trainer at the gym,
I see a commercial for gold. Six reasons
to buy gold. It is the safest place in the world
to keep your money.
Joe
Biden says
Gitmo needs to close.
A
judge rejects the lieutenant’s guilty
plea because she, brain damaged, was following orders.
Yesterday my sister called. My mother is dying
of cancer. I have been rehearsing my blame
and forgiveness speech, angry old drunk. Who am I kidding?
In the sixties, I watched Looney Tunes reruns after school.
In one, Elmer Fudd hunts Bugs Bunny through time,
ending in 2005 as Elmer shoots him with a laser gun.
Long-bearded Bugs pops out of the grave, kisses Elmer, what’s up, Doc?
What will I do when you die? I asked my parents back then.
I never thought
I would live in a country that tortures people.
Some folks say that the lowest unit
of
sense
is the sentence.
Others say it is gold.
I say it is the word.
What’s
up, Doc?
The ending comes first,
then the beginning. Abu Ghraib. Save gold.
Cancer. Dying. Then beginning.
How you tortured us.
I forgive you. Please forgive me.
With the ending, thirst
comes
to the living.
Then the beginning.
Gold.
Save.
James Cihlar