Friday, June 24, 2011

Poem by Mebane Robertson

Driving Out of a Dry County
How much I still wish you were here to help
This dream go smoother, to help wipe off with a rag
All the bad things that went down.
You are right.  I respond best to cognitive behavioral
Therapy.  But other schools have something to offer,
And all I did was turn it on automatic and spray.
No idea of getting a medal—no, no nothing.
The cleaning lady had already come.
Intelligence can run away, but
When it comes to saving the life of a brother,
Thinking itself is my enemy, and when you were lifted out
I felt the words you could not say.
And the post trauma leaves me vacant,
Just a transcendental Jones Very ambulating around the room,
Which some call heaven swept bare of agency itself.
You know I’m a bad liar.
Truth is I wonder who has possession
Of these fingers as they jitter over the keyboard,
Waiting for her to fall into my life I don’t know why.
Truth is in the How You Been? as my heart’s bartender
Pops the top with the bar key,
And the fair lady sets things up with something sweet and dark
From the hell of her reaching
Out to me in her Scottish hair 
For something to drown out these conversations
That prattle on forever down below the well,
You know, just between us.

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