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September 23, 2002
One Last, More Serious Poem
One Last, More Serious Poem
Okay, here's one last orignially unfinished poem that decided it was actually finished after all. I had three more lines that trailed off into oblivion, but upon reflection, the poem called itself complete as I present it below.
Impression: San Antonio
Steven RiddleFrom a perch in Hill Country my fake-adobe cell
opens onto iron grillwork of a ledge, not a balcony,
that hangs tightly over a handsbreadth
of green and flowers. "Just press here. Some folks seen
a wasp's nest and called and we come right out and
take care of it." I thank him and pass a small
baton of green and see him out. A wasp's nest--
I'm thinking now how did I happen to be here--all
the way across the river and the wide expanse
of plain from where my heart cries out to be,
here in the city that sat at the crossroads of
a history--reduced now to a swarming black sea
of twisted, braided byways. As I look
into the distance
will the church that once transformed a world
loom up and fill the horizon? Or will the waste
of plastic malls and all-the-same eateries mold
this landscape into unhallowed ground.©2002 Steven Riddle
Posted by Steven Riddle at September 23, 2002 8:25 AM