New Poetry


All The Things You Were Told

would save you,
they have not saved you.
Not religion or philosophy,
not Jesus, Buddha
or the devil.
The trajectory and alignment of the planets and stars
has not saved you.
Your country and it's president have not saved you.
Books have not saved you.
Art has not saved you.
Poetry has not saved you.
Not drugs, sex
or even rock and roll.
Your family and your friends have not saved you.
You have not saved yourself.
Even love
has come and gone and left you
sitting alone in some quiet room
unsaved.
Yet still you imagine something
out there,
something as yet unnamed
with the power to change
all of this.
I'm not laughing, friend, I'm
right there
with you.
In fact, I think I see it right now
in the girl sitting at the table in the sun
with sunglasses and a pint of beer.
Her cigarette held just so,
a cheap paperback novel open in front of her.
I cannot say what it is,
I cannot put a name to it
but it is there.
a hint of possibility perhaps,
in the curve of her mouth
and the patterns the sunlight makes
upon the tabletop.
I breathe it in
and believe.

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