What We Were Before

stand now

listen pain

ignorance

stupidity

poets, priests and punks

spray array

 

oncoming high beam

verses, rhymes,

not, especially not

I am,

was nothing

if not not

 

decades careful

word order

splash

throw out

like fish water

like paint to a jet

 

now I look

a trellis old lady

hung flowers

see mine,

not hung

not blooming

 

tight

sloppy

growing

growing old

wise unto death,

what?

 

words removed

become

like me

not

what we were before

now what, who?

 

now what and who?