This Roll Upon the Roof

What do you do with this desolation,
this roll upon the roof?
Where do we find the jukebox judy
who dances billy-hoo?
What do we say to the helpless people
who keen and wail and regroup?
Change the skid?
Flip the lid?
Put Jesus in the soup?

What can you do with this desolation
marching in my hair,
what do I say to the pop-fiestas
scrunching through my lair?
—talk to wing-nuts, holy-rollers
seated on the stair,
and comfey kids lost in screens,
yawning in the glare?

What do we do with this desolation
that hovers above the grace?
What do we do with the burning desires
that grow at a break-neck pace?
Where do we go when our fruits are silenced
and ground into a waste?
Why do we spin on a licensed wind-mill
but never face the face
of hope in bed with dreams that beam
and bump and shriek ‘beware’
of street defenses, of men as fences
of girls with eyes that break

It’s a constant unrelenting loneliness
that coughs inside my head.

 

2021-02-06T13:21:10+00:00