Poem for Thursday, October 17, 2013

Lessons from Stanford

I.

There are countless metaphors for death, each
more cryptic than the last;

death is indifferent towards them all


II.

There are several ways to judge a man:

the length of his string of crappie
the way he rolls his tobacco or if
he can clutch your soul and mark it
with his stories

There is one way to judge a woman:

is there fire in her eyes?


III.

There is something incredibly significant in
this image:

         a moonlit knife shining under the
         creek bed, washed clean
         of blood (on the
                              surface)
                 

IV.

We are those bloody knives, all of us
gazing up wide-eyed beneath the ripples
irradiated in moonbeams
tear-glazed and beautiful