The Kind of Time

the kind of time it was
get written about
it was the kind of time years
follow from, years at a time
the mind's injured, going no further
dangled at the edge of speech, possibly
signing off, possibly convulsing

it was the kind of strained place
best suited to war photography's
drab demographic conspiracy
a sad rhetoric, grimacing
indistinct
from a thousand others
that never made headlines

by column inch
thre front lines of your boredom made
candor an evernt. simple and utter
as gunfire, the way you spoke
was fatal. your voice broke
across the schoolyard in the morning
like laughter. there was flame in your mouth
like ice, like
the impossibility of being human
lightly, no hope of disgrace
(1988)