they've killed a dog and other poems finally! i've broken from my gothika spell and am able to post something different!


Pretensions on a River
by Jose Wendell P. Capili
for Mahar

Punting on this river, we outswear
the cavalry of monks burning incense
before an image so alien for both of us
to make offerings with reverence.
We renounce the color of our skin,
not confessing how three men
attacked you from behind,
stepped on you, walked over your head,
paid no attention to a turning
of medieval earth where we versified
how universal blood and feelings are.
Punting on this river, we plucked
a tune of chamber music
not realizing that, as we pass through
Clare and Trinity, we have become
the loneliest of figures on straw
mats we procured from merchants
who believe that pretension is fluvial.
We punt on rivers before gloom
touches the rim of a dead-end pool.

[ more poems by jose wendell capili ]
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[ they've killed a dog ]  ¶ 7/09/2004 10:51:00 PM