Hosho McCreesh: Two Poems
SLAUGHTERHOUSE
. . . After all,
there's just very little
sense
to be made of
anything -
crib death,
gated communities,
quality control,
& kids gunning each other down at school.
I mean, how essential, really, is
TV Guide,
Who wants to be a Millionaire,
meanwhile we're all marching
head-long to the
slaughterhouse,
The leasing of automobiles,
Big Macs,
abandoned animals
& the logging of old growth forest in the Pacific Northwest,
where does it stop?
Why do anything,
why make sense of anything
ever,
really,
after taking all of that into
account?
Because.
Because,
if it makes no sense &
if we can't take it w/ us,
if we'll have nothing to show for it in the end
then the least we can do is
rage
against frivolity &
untruth.
We can simplify
& we can choose to
believe
implicitly
that there can be
no
true
punishment
for honesty.
If it all matters,
or if is matters not,
slaughterhouse or
high-fly-soaring on makeshift wings
we are
solely
responsible
for all we do, eat, say, repeat
& to forfeit that
is to lose
the only thing we were actually
given --
the opportunity to
fuck it up for
ourselves.
THE DEMONS, THE BLANK PAGE, & THE NIGHT
i like that
moment
where the light
outside
balances against the light
inside -
an earned moment of
calm,
so brief
& tragic
& resplendant...
& the sun
spirals & dance
down the backside of the
horizon,
sky aflame,
& with a final pull from a bottle of beer
& I say out loud
to no one
"C'mon, let's see what you got.."
& once more I face
the demons,
the blank page,
& the night ...
Hosho McCreesh is a poet hailing from Albuquerque, New Mexico. This is his first appearance in Gnome.
