Paint

Koiné Greek was the Lingua Franca of the Roman Empire. Spider Monkeys are more a distraction than a danger. Those guilty of envy languish with their eyelids sewn together. Anything else in the box, Pandora? So let us melt into one another & make no noise. Til human voices wake us. Coolie is derived from the Chinese ku li. Elizabethan England saw a resurgence of interest in antiquity. The scales were flecked with gold that kindled into brightness. Radial or radical? Convent or convenient? Oh Richard, she gushed, you were so very, very adequate. After frying, they are often topped with a surgery glaze. Tempered glass doesn’t fluoresce. Just put yourself in my hands, cupcake, cooed Lady Hyacinth. Augustine believed violence was permissible in a spiritual cause. Fat falling the nettle back. I’m in a mow-down groove. Deerslayer or soothsayer? Incident or increment? The Romans introduced a large, flat, tile-like brick into Britain. Joseph Dubonnet intended that his aperitif serve to mask the acrid taste of quinine. Tubular steel can be easily bent in any direction. Not tango but mango. Not tint but taint. I’ve lived here forever, explained Francois. Eight, maybe nine years. Do the jody grind, urged Marcella. His fate made him fugitive. They had remained far too long on the dunes & now the tide was steadily ebbing out of the estuary. Denver lies a little more than 1,700 miles west of Baltimore. At first he thought Amanda uncharitable & hard. The bones refuse to work. No screaming comes across the sky. Don’t forget, brother: print ain’t paint.

Autobiographical Note

The Boy Scouts taught me to shoot
but not particularly well.
Too young not to know better
I clambered over fences & saw
some things I should not.
My bedroom had two mirrors, one
of which I avoided.  The other
I took for the world as I knew it.
I worked hard to achieve the status
of the stranger.  I allowed women
to know I was capable of weeping.

Try hard as I might, I was a failure
at sin.  The battles I fought with myself
were bloody & ended in draws.
Later on, I developed the habit of prayer
but only in dead languages.

I was beautiful in a way
many never noticed.  I was bad
with apples, good with oranges.

 © Sid Gold

Sid Gold’s third book of poetry is forthcoming this year on Broadkill River Press (Jamie Brown, Publisher). His prose poem, “10 More” is in the current issue of Poet Lore. He is also a two-time recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council (MSAC) Individual Artist Award for Poetry. A native New Yorker, he lives in Hyattsville, Maryland.

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