Poetry of Mud
By Joan Lavanant

9/11 Memoir Poem

This is a free-association - on John Ashbery¹s Crazy Weather

A few letters makes all the difference

At some anonymous crossroads

At the height of confusion

The sky calls

But suicide is not an option

Those who have tried and failed

Are left in a spot

As others come to inspect.

A rare sample is occasionally found

In the lingering stench

Of screaming rebuttal

To all we thought we knew.

"It¹s this crazy weather we¹ve been having, it has everyone acting screwy."

One stands over

The other disembodies

Yet another, stitches whites of lilacs

With lightening acuity.

A simple unconscious dignity

One never attains in life.

"What is our true aspiration?"

"Is it ever just ­ right?"

Falling forward one minute

Lying down the next.

Holding, always holding

To the deaf earth

Expecting to be heard.

The proverbial disarray

Of uniform expectation.

Narrow bodies squeezing

Through approximate ravines.

Rendered timeless

Among soft flowers.

Heads drooping to nameless grasses

That stand in mourning.

When life becomes literature

A poetry of mud.