the ghosts of these dark hills

the ghosts of these dark hills


if i could see the flowers growing as van gogh once saw flowers grow
then these poems would twist and writhe upon the page in torment slow
splash and swirl with yellow passion, hock and spit a madman’s green
vomit blues and blacks across the night in a sky stark and obscene
but my eyes are forced to faces and catch the bend of breaking backs
as black and bitter coal comes crushing down on souls in shacks

if i could hear the voice of war come floating down throughout the years
as once made forever living by beethoven’s dying ears
then these poems would ache with steel come screeching down from scarlet sky
and tremble with the clatter of the body carts piled high
but the gunfire on blair mountain is all i hear above the din
the scream of mortality realized from the mouths of murdered men

if i could feel the gulf stream churning ‘neath the thin hull of my boat
catch the sun on marlin burning as hemingway once wrote
then these poems would clip and clatter with precise, staccato prose
and when i’m old and fatter i’d trip the trigger with my toes
but it’s the feel of my forefather’s flesh wearing my skin like a glove
that defines me and reminds me what my soul’s shroud is made of

these poems are of my body, the rhymes my rhyming limbs
the meter is the beating of my blood through ink stained veins
i chortle and i chuckle, i grumble and i roar
i throw myself at heaven and i fall back on the floor
i have nothing left of charming words or pretty paint and pleasing sound
nothing but the ghosts of these dark hills who await me in the ground