Reading Tennyson on the Rock Island

Orders received,
without a second guess they go flying
right into the teeth of the cannons.
I’m terrified of what’s called courage.

Today the sky is hungover;
shrunken, damp, and stalebreathed.
There are several accounts of ancient Greeks requesting eternal life
failing to remember also eternal youth.
How rash they must feel now,
molding raisins. Lives are decided
in the space between a lightning flash
and two drops of water hitting
a soaked earth

while the report sings through hollowed spaces
carved into the bones of creatures from prehistory.
There, reaching a conclusion, the sound ceases
and transmutates sullenly to mystery.

So it should come as no surprise
that, looking up, I find
outside the raindappled window
an ambulance stuck by the train,
lights raging.

John A Maloney studied English at the University of Iowa and that is why he is able to talk it so good. Sometimes he writes things down if they seem interesting, mostly he forgets to. Feel free to buy him a turntable or some whiskey.