Trash Barge
Oni Buchanan
The light from a star
is an idea blown out
that’s still smoking--
The light from a star
is an injury
oozing from the depth
of the abrasion--
Dark light from a dark lantern
(the sky a punched tin sheet).
The stars the harbingers of carnage
(bullet holes in the black-draped chest).
The trash barge floats under the stars,
under the infected, plundered stars--
Under the bridge under the stars, the barge--
A barge with static! A barge with gravel!
The compacted cars stacked
in giant parcels--
And heavy water beneath the stars.
Beneath the bridge, beneath the barge.
Heavy water carrying its
surface undulations, its
tensions and striations. Heavy water
bears up the barge, bears up
the stars, illegible. The sick light
illuminates the plight of
a cargo of trash, a cargo of purge--
When something crashes through a surface
there is no signature, no souvenir of perfect
outline that remains.
But when something carves, when something carves--
A scythe inside the light’s beam
to harvest the heavy sheaves
left when the light goes out.
Guardians of dark.
Scarves and Cares. Scares. Caverns.
Scars. To parse
from the same warped minutes
from the same harmonics, an anarchy
of music in the exact
tract of air, from the same unfair
instrument, the body--
The trash barge glides beneath the stars
(bequeathed with brides and inquiries),
under the quarreling stars
(beneath the saturated gauze)
(the rust-leak, the drilled teeth, the static screen),
beyond the oily sedge
at the darkest edge of water, at the margin lap--
and past the dark apartments crammed
with people, inhabitants asleep
beneath the cynical windows
whose sneering faces oversee
the odyssey of trash, the plotted
course and deed, dotted
on a captain’s map, the final quest,
the glint of blade, the threshing--
not you, coat hanger to the flesh
not you, tack upon a necktie
not you, answer to the name
shred of present thing, not you
not you, sacrificial animal bending gentle toward the grass
not you, shellacked to a splinter of driftwood
not you, floss through a desiccated spiral shell
not you, material for barter
not you, martyr, a forgery of courage
not you, instrument of rusted gears and levers
not you, faded ticket for a faded seat
is an idea blown out
that’s still smoking--
The light from a star
is an injury
oozing from the depth
of the abrasion--
Dark light from a dark lantern
(the sky a punched tin sheet).
The stars the harbingers of carnage
(bullet holes in the black-draped chest).
The trash barge floats under the stars,
under the infected, plundered stars--
Under the bridge under the stars, the barge--
A barge with static! A barge with gravel!
The compacted cars stacked
in giant parcels--
And heavy water beneath the stars.
Beneath the bridge, beneath the barge.
Heavy water carrying its
surface undulations, its
tensions and striations. Heavy water
bears up the barge, bears up
the stars, illegible. The sick light
illuminates the plight of
a cargo of trash, a cargo of purge--
When something crashes through a surface
there is no signature, no souvenir of perfect
outline that remains.
But when something carves, when something carves--
A scythe inside the light’s beam
to harvest the heavy sheaves
left when the light goes out.
Guardians of dark.
Scarves and Cares. Scares. Caverns.
Scars. To parse
from the same warped minutes
from the same harmonics, an anarchy
of music in the exact
tract of air, from the same unfair
instrument, the body--
The trash barge glides beneath the stars
(bequeathed with brides and inquiries),
under the quarreling stars
(beneath the saturated gauze)
(the rust-leak, the drilled teeth, the static screen),
beyond the oily sedge
at the darkest edge of water, at the margin lap--
and past the dark apartments crammed
with people, inhabitants asleep
beneath the cynical windows
whose sneering faces oversee
the odyssey of trash, the plotted
course and deed, dotted
on a captain’s map, the final quest,
the glint of blade, the threshing--
not you, coat hanger to the flesh
not you, tack upon a necktie
not you, answer to the name
shred of present thing, not you
not you, sacrificial animal bending gentle toward the grass
not you, shellacked to a splinter of driftwood
not you, floss through a desiccated spiral shell
not you, material for barter
not you, martyr, a forgery of courage
not you, instrument of rusted gears and levers
not you, faded ticket for a faded seat