Friday, September 13, 2019

Herr Rilke's High School Reunion

oh to the drill and the picking apart of the heart remembered
at dinner is poetry's orphan picking at his food
impossible to imagine the perjuries

in the drawing room
where pupils learn manners
and how to cloak mockery

beneath it all. fall in.
its the fall of the year
he walks the footpaths endlessly

and the leaves are with him sympathetically
and the roots of trees
the stars, far from military occupations.

robot student expectations

click heels. it comes again
endless misery to the dreamer
perched as if before death

on an unseen branch
that weeps in the constellations
only for him.

mary angela douglas 13 september 2019

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