the wasteling

by Michael Borth

I am possessed by the broken children.

By the villains of the industrial evening.

In footpaths of torn lingerie. In the willows

Darkened by stadiumlight. By doves in the

Red glare of billboard and tower panel. It

Comes like a forked tongue. Innocent and

Mistrusted to the hand of God. The palm

Unmarked and strange. Untouched by our

Tetanus and pox. By cell tower and roman

Aqueduct. Burrs foster irritation in the eyelid.

I hear them in something common like the wind.

Which is why clichés are made. To render the

Truth a ragsheet in the avenue of irregular snow.

Produced in baggage and raw desert scrub. As

Suicidal as my weekends in Taos. Away from

The blood of Christ and the late sky like billiard

Chalk. Writing on the windowsill. Smoking in

The teepee. Letting the magpies have the chicks

When milk came from a torn udder. I was not

Easily found. I carried paperbacks to trailers on

American islands. Poured clean emerald gasoline

Into the orange of the chainsaw. I withstood myself.

Watched Braveheart through the VCR. Watched

Faulkner conduct the rhetoric. Let the swamp drones

Drink the secret ladders of my makeup. To bring

Her candy from town. To perfect a solar emission

Of romance and interstate. I miss them now in cold

Prayer and by inked maps of the pocket lines you are

Always there. As vending machine pamphlets will

Tell you. Or drunken bus drivers crumpled in their

Official blues. Voices warm the night of the greyhound

To put you on a Balkan shore. In the precise melancholy

Of the Danube. Rigid in the border straw leaning fire

Creates writing in the horizon band. Or tenors of ground

Rooks where I planted bizarre script. Where I dreamed

Of her breasts sitting on the holocaust bench or the

Tour of communist metal. Seeds were broken at those

Middle school macs. In the coffee aromatics of teacher

And office. Of classroom and marijuana car. Stilted in

The energetic wasteling chant was torn from the magnet

To strum infinite mirror tunnels. Abiding the common

Decay or enflamed twin towers. It was still possible

To be buried alive. To be anonymous in the secondary

Forest. To buy simple goods from the market by the ferry.

To fail to addict to cigarillo. To succeed in the Jerusalem

Of bottle and name. The white sanctuary of the cooler

Is now sunset mead. The heart preserved in Cointreau. The

Liver in witch hazel and Cuban rum. Smelling of marzipan

And marshmallow. Of a campfire morning and a veteran’s

Workbench the scythe is put to the wall as ultimate trophy.

Photo of Michael Borth

BIO: Michael Borth is the author of The World Dreamer and As I Roam The Life Cycle. Website here: The Coastlands.