Ugly’s Only Skin-Deep
but who said beauty’s absolutely guts?
night is a gas flame in a dream
the altar boy aims his slingshot at a satellite
snuffs a comet drops a star
and slumps the city shoulder to shoulder with the hill
of the blonde valley of nine shadows where
a bee opens a raspberry flower
beside the sod hut where a bodhisattva’s too drunk
to play his paper flute where the fox died
of an infected paw a fly spreads its wings in the wound
the years collapse to weeks
weeks to hours hours to seconds!
and I’ve never been less iron than April
with its pollen and its people and all their pollution
it pokes a hole in grandma’s ghost
when daughter sister mother love
father brother son it’s the world on a stick
sit down drink up be kind
life is hard and leisure hardens in the sun.
by Ryan Dowling
This is wonderful. I especially love: “…where a bodhisattva’s too drunk/
to play his paper flute where the fox died/…”
From now on, I’ll have more time to devote to reading; I’ll enjoy being able to read here regularly, as well as other places.
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Thanks for the kind words. Always keeping an eye out for your excellent haiku-picture poems.
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