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OCTOBER POEM

 OCTOBER POEM

 

The dark is rising, but it always has

Been an upstart, just because

That’s what darkness does.

We have the horizon to focus on,

 

That way the high Beaufort

Won’t render us sick, again.

Grip your ice pick, prepare

To wrestle on the ice. Fittest

 

Survive, the rest get locked down

In the sinking feeling part of town.

Shoulder your Winchester,

We all require level action now,

 

Now that lever-repeating guns

Are everywhere. Smell the cinders

Blocking the daily air. Winter arrives

Like the apologetic ticket collector

 

Who knows you don’t carry one,

Will have to nudge you off the train.

Let’s face it, you’ll hold on,

Somehow, tethered to the caboose,

 

With a leather noose. Reveal

Your shining scalpels, doctors

Of the new strange constraints,

Begin to cut and tear at what’s wrong;

 

It’s never light, and the money’s gone,

But there’s more of us than them,

And we can sort of hum Shelley’s songs.

Strap those masques on, Anarchies!

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