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Vendetta, May 2006

By Tim Seibles

My thoughts are murder to the State and involuntarily go plotting against her.
          --Henry David Thoreau

As if leaving
it behind would
have me lost
in this place, as if

keeping it
could somehow
save me from the
parade of knives,

I have held
my rage on a short
leash like a good,
mad dog whose bright

teeth could keep
the faces of our enemies
well lit. Is it

wrong to hate
the leaders? Am I wrong
to hate their silk
ties and their

secret economies?
Am I wrong? Am I?
Look how they

work the stage
like cool comedians,
ribbing the nations this
way, then that --

gaff after giggle
filling the auditoriums
with the empty
skulls. Maybe this

is the moment
to abandon
metaphor: shouldn't somebody
make them

suffer: now that
war is easy money,
won't the reasons
keep coming to see

how well
people die?

     I guess this
is the world
I was born

into: moonlight,
sunshine--kind city

of my mother's lap, my
father     tossing me

up     and catching me --

I remember
the first time I saw

autumn     outside
my window: the colors

came with the smell
of burning

leaves     and starving
in our basement,

the crickets
trying to stave off

the chill, still working
their little whistles
after dark.

     I think, even
then, I knew a season
would come
for us: the wind

tilting slowly, but
suddenly everyone
is under the cold

still holding on
to their wallets
as the government

quietly turns     and day
after day, the terrible stories

cover everything.
Added: Wednesday, July 2, 2014  /  Used with permission.
Tim Seibles
Photo by: Helen Peppe

Tim Seibles was born in Philadelphia, PA in 1955. He is the author of several books of poems including Hurdy-Gurdy; Hammerlock; and, most recently, Buffalo Head Solos. He is a former National Endowment for the Arts fellow and has been a writing fellow at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center in Massachusetts. Seibles also received an Open Voice Award from the 63rd Street Y in New York City. His work has been featured in anthologies such as Manthology; Black Nature; Seriously Funny; The Autumn House Anthology of American Poetry; So Much Things to Say; and Best American Poetry 2010. He has been a workshop leader for the Cave Canem Writers Retreat and for the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation. Seibles is visiting faculty for the University of Southern Maine's low-res Stonecoast MFA Program. His home is in Norfolk, VA where, as an associate professor of English, he teaches in Old Dominion University's English Department and MFA in writing program. Seibles was a featured poet at the 2014 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.

Other poems by this author

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