BRUCE McRAE

 

Truth Or Consequences

 

In a painting by Jean-Leon Gerome

Truth comes out of her well,

like a flower blooming in a time of war,

to chastise all humanity.

 

Naked and angry and wet,

she carries a thatch broom

to sweep away the lies and sins

we collect as if pins and buttons.

 

Screeching like a witch's cat,

she appears quite vexed,

being imprisoned down a well and all,

and there is more work than plenty,

 

darkness warring with light,

people being people and sore afraid,

deceit their art and legacy

and a curse upon reason.

 

The Unremembered

 

Just like that, she disappeared.

The rooms of her apartment

rang with quiet and cold.

Not a shadow crossed the garden.

Her name was never spoken.

 

After the Grand Assumption faded

a Great Forgetting settled in,

her cat dying a slow death,

the houseplants beyond redemption,

bills accruing their dizzying humours.

 

She left behind the rainy evenings —

and not a note, not a word, not a clue.

And that's pretty much the all of it,

no hallowed farewells on snowy days,

she a hostage to absence

and gone unremembered.

 

Eons later, and the future grown old.

A bone is weighed and measured

but nothing can ever come of it.

We too have gone missing.

The stars have taken another path.

A sea of fire has swallowed the planet.

 

BRUCE McRAE

 

BRUCE McRAE, a Canadian musician, is a multiple Pushcart nominee with poems published in hundreds of magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. His latest book 'Boxing In The Bone Orchard' is available now via Frontenac House.