Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Two Poems by Sy Roth

Fences

Headless creatures buried in performance.
Arms entwined like fence wire surrounding an open field
they wrap their emotion in cellophane in a
profane desire to keep it fresh.

Around them machines twist and squirm
through the mud of their lusty imaginations,
digging holes where none existed,
then filling them with ambrosial thoughts of satisfaction,
uncompromising sounds of squeaking foundations
built on that which will ultimately rot.

Peeping toms measure and define duration and viability,
a circadian rhythmical moment.
Like dying embers that float on a mission to nowhere,
expunged with one delectable breath of wind.
The front loader mounded with dirt
buries them both under it and
they breathe in the pungent odors of their labors
without desire.


Embossed

They said he was worthless because he had contradictions.
They wanted straight, he gave them crooked stories
that travel at the same speed as two passing trains, giving the illusion of standing still.

Their lavish tales a scarlet letter hung from him like an awful name imposed at birth.
Suitcases were crammed with those stories,
inauthentic, gold-embossed, stamped prime tales in which
real deeds lay festering, pus-filled vestigial organs corrupting the body.

Maligned by the tattlers and naysayers converts into reality.
Empty entities shadow-stretched over sidewalks and bifurcated roads,
miserables nestled among the miserables find room for their aggrandizement
in The Inquirer or poisoned words in liquid ears.

What they say, fixed in time and space, sediment clouding the sweet wine.
He must bear the albatross pursued eternally by them, waiting for the silence.
Incarceration the reward for being hungry for freedom.


Sy Roth comes riding in and then canters out. Oftentimes, the head is bowed by reality; other times, he is proud to have said something noteworthy. cRetired after forty-two years as teacher/school administrator, he now resides in Mount Sinai, far from Moses and the tablets. This has led him to find words for solace. He spends his time writing and playing his guitar. He has published in many online publications such as BlogNostics, Every Day Poets, Danse Macabre, Bitchin’ Kitsch, Bong is Bard, The Artistic Muse, Palimpsest, Dead Snakes, Euphemism, Humanimalz Literary Journal, Ascent Aspirations, Fowl Feathered Review, Vayavya, Wilderness House Journal, Aberration Labyrinth, Mindless(Muse), Em Dash, South Townsville Micropoetry Journal, Vox Poetica, Clutching at Straws, Downer Magazine, Every Day Poems, Avalon Literary Review and Kerouac’s Dog. One of his poems, Forsaken Man, was selected for Best of 2012 poems in Storm Cycle. Also selected Poet of the Month in Poetry Super Highway, September 2012. His work was also read at Palimpsest Poetry Festival in December 2012.






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