BOB RIXON
THE MARSHES BY THE HIGHWAY
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A particular path crosses a polluted tidal creek where familiar monsters breed in dark culverts. A shopping cart in the mud with a used syringe, limp condom, a pair of socks, one shoe, empty can of Colt 45, worn tire nearby in the weeds, an honest & visible pestilence. A huge playground for rats echoing genocide at high tide, the Lenni Lenape Memorial Arrowhead Collection buried in fifty gallon drums beside the late James Hoffa. Somewhere along this great trading route hidden by tall grasses & black muck, we crouch near a small campfire like silent night herons. Whenever we barter this paradise for the price of tomorrow's lunch, we forget how we came here, how we once spoke of ourselves, burning our noble words with dead twigs. |
THE WAR MONUMENT
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What is nailed to granite takes us hostage to a myth of optimism, a community where no babies are abandoned in garbage cans, wise old women in lawn chairs fanning themselves with astrological charts, highways repaved but never widened, all retail clerks brothers and sisters, poets riding motorized skateboards, good manners among neighbors because no one is too rich or too poor, the serene aftermath of war our fertile real estate. A cat in the dark alley knocks over a garbage can, cockroaches pass through poison as through a slightly unusual room, don't be afraid, what you see is a reflection in the window of an oriental woman peeking over her glasses while she works at a sewing machine. A soldier clothed in green patina marches past the public library for his proud Gold Star Mother. We are taught our wars are kindnesses, favors we do for our enemies. Peace is also a litany of greed, fading uniforms, reams of paper with secrets printed on them. Waking up in a strange hospital, hearing the butterflies screaming. |