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Old and Greats

Old and Greats

They tell you to just bleed on the page,

all those old and greats,

as if we still had the time to dig at our wrists

with their sharp-cut fountain pens,

as if we still had ink like that.

But we don’t patch our trousers anymore

or wear scuffed shoes

because our shoes aren’t made

of that kind of material anymore;

we hide our wear and tear now.

Rhetoric isn’t an art like it used to be,

and we spend too much time hiding our bruises

to remember how to properly wrap a wound

once we have let it bleed

and bleed

all over that godforsaken fucking blood-soaked paper

that all those old and greats

told us would be our salvation.

They all went crazy, you know.

Wonder we are too.

Unfinished

I am grown weary of these boys who break us,
of burnt fingers from hot coffee
and not quite enough substance to the cup.

I am grown tired of these days that crack us,
of bones knocked brittle
by the wear and tear of an all-too-ordinary misery.

I am grown numb from this buzzing in the background
of all the past little onslaughts
that have left us printed with the ink of yesterday’s news.