A.D. Winans
For Kenneth Patchen
where were they when you lay in your deathbed
crippled and dying
where were they when you lay starving and broke?
there was no wailing then
there were no sounds of wild lament
not even a quiet weeping of the soul
no hungry hands knocking at your door
as you lay looking up at the heavens
barely able to talk or move
where were they when the hour of darkness came
when the blackbird sang out in disguise
and the bullfrog in the field silently cried
strange how the vultures gather here like blind ravens
crawling the lonely streets with their midnight cawing
gathering in twos and threes to read their swollen lines
here at north beach where the written word dies slowly
no real sign of emotion in this bought and paid for audience
each poet following the other like a line of corpses strung
out ten miles in a neon lit graveyard each voice rising and
falling the coated sugar on their tongues intent on mourning
down the hours on this moonless midnight evening where terror
and agony are partners and the shadow of your being dances
along the mountains coated in bright enamel.
Other work by A.D. Winans