Monday, January 24, 2011

Monday Poems: "Eclipsed: 2004" - by Mark Gibbons

Last week the old man in the moon
went Coppertone, got Indian muddy,
and lost his blonde halo completely
when Earth rolled in front of the sun,

beauty swallowed by the beast.
Which vacant eyes & screaming
mouth would you recognize: Van Gogh's oil
weeping or a gaping holocaust corpse?

Its lunar voice stifled by space & time,
dumbed down, numbed by political lies,
call it: Crazy Horse, Osama, Ho Chi Minh,
VooDoo Witch, the black shadow in your room.

If you listen hard you can hear credit card
transactions and taste the dust kicked up
by jack boots tromping across Whitman's bridge
to stomp a queer from the Bronx unconscious.

Friends, democratic republicans, lend me
your fears, your freedoms, your kids. Dark times
call for smart bombs & collateral damage. We must
destroy all dark things that stand in our light.

in memory of Hunter S. Thompson

*     *     *

Mark Gibbons is a poet and a lifelong resident of Montana. When he isn't teaching for the Missoula Writing Collaborative or the Montana Arts Council, he's driving truck, moving furniture, or writing a poem. His work has appeared in numerous journals. "Eclipsed: 2004" was published in War, Madness, & Love.

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