westerner:
buy wisdom
connect yourselves with the coin
transliquify happiness and
pray from the pages of whos and wheres
for it all has to be accounted for
someone had to do all this
some debt had to be settled
and the artist is owed his due

westerner:
criticize hypocrisy
fly into motions
and perceive empty connections
your lease was paid too late
your time now borrowed
hum
hum in the night
no this is not hate
it is not hate
they do not hate me

westerner:
all of your people
and all of what was said
they are all in the potential of yesterday
and really there isn't so much
even everything that is taught
is just a way of pretending
it is not that nothing is ever new
but that people are not things
what was new was the crying child
with black hair
for she will inherit the world

westerner:
you thought the world was round
well she was
a drop of water
bubbling and flowing
stretching as she spun
mountains flung and settled back like mud
once when she was young
we thought of the firmament and the water beneath
now we think of man
man

in a dream i saw the western sky grow dark
but in the east a pale light lingered
pale i thought was a city
oh was it all for nothing
what can i say to you people
shadows on the wall
as the nurse with the glasses of water
rounds the corner and goes clinking down the stairs
it is nice that this house smells of wood
and lived with ten generations
it is nice that the stairs creak under her feet

westerner,
was it all hid?  all of your life?
or could you see out sometimes?
the milky way was our signpost, did you not see it?
ah, forgive me, my thoughts are those of an old man
the trees rustle outside, shadows obscuring
and changing the light from dim to bright and back
and the screen door slams downstairs
and the tugging of the wind

i suppose someday it will all seem
the labored pushings of a machine
against itself, till it emitted steam
and calmed down to warm the hearth,
as it was meant to do, and me and you
will -- heaven willing -- think of the old man
upstairs in the blue light, yellow walls, whistling
wind on the corners of the roof, and think he troubled
himself for nothing, for metal stoves by the hearth
which emit heat serve to warm the feet, aye
and that is how it is

O remark,
the intermittant gusts of flame
it is easy to stare and forget how it came
to be; was there a man upstairs drinking a glass
of water, it is warm here and i am sleepy and smiling,
listening to stories told by the fire, how mike shot
up the bathroom trying to chase a varment out; fair is
the sun, fair is the moon, fair is the daughter of the reeds,
fair is the sunshine that came through the room and went
and still recedes, the embers in the fire, her hand on my
neck and i fall back into her hand, and westerner and
condemnation and something about that, but i'm sleepy,
so good
night.

 - "fire", connelly barnes, 2007-01-09