Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Richard OFebruary 19, 2007
A poor thing the past
pathetically lost
arthritic ghosts
sealed up for years
in the great houses
of Charleston
leprous walls
peeling white paint
& delicate spinets
cracked yellow keys
like old bones
exhumed among
crazed porcelain

A poor thing the past
to us full of blood
reeking of life
smelling the mould
hearing the faint
tick of decay
peering & prowling
through high-vaulted rooms
stopped by the stare
from insolent eyes
the fury of a life
that had been
& is still here

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.

The latest from america

The 12 women whose feet were washed by Pope Francis included women from Italy, Bulgaria, Nigeria, Ukraine, Russia, Peru, Venezuela and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
"We, the members of the Society of Jesus, continue to be lifted up in prayer, in lament, in protest at the death and destruction that continue to reign in Gaza and other territories in Israel/Palestine, spilling over into the surrounding countries of the Middle East."
The Society of JesusMarch 28, 2024
A child wounded in an I.D.F. bombardment is brought to Al Aqsa hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, on March 25. (AP Photo/Ismael abu dayyah)
While some children have been evacuated from conflict, more than 1.1 million children in Gaza and 3.7 million in Haiti have been left behind to face the rampaging adult world around them.
Kevin ClarkeMarch 28, 2024
Easter will not be postponed this year. It will not wait until the war is over. It is precisely now, in our darkest hour, that resurrection finds us.
Stephanie SaldañaMarch 28, 2024