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Unread 06-26-2010, 04:25 PM
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Ed Shacklee Ed Shacklee is offline
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Join Date: May 2010
Location: Takoma Park, MD
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It's not easy to gauge how much quiet and how much despair is needed to fit snugly into this category. "Sparrows on a Hillside Drift" is the poem by James Wright that first came to mind, but here's another:


To a Friend Condemned to Prison

Long I have seen those eyes,
Alert, astonished, bright,
Turn softly and survey
The girl in the falling light,
Or see down lucid skies
Soft bodies shift away.

Now, in the peopled dark,
Where hands make love to stone,
The shimmering vision falls,
The flesh lies down alone.
Only the mind hangs stark
Above the curving walls.

Hold to the mind, and die! –
Is all I say or know.
Yet you, embracing grief,
Father its children now.
Forgiving, proud, you lie
With murderer, pervert, thief:

Nothing to do but keep
The body beaten down,
The clothing clean and frayed.
Nothing to do but drown
The blood in its own sleep,
And bid the heart lie dead.
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