Poetry at Sangam

SangamHouse

 










THE RIGHT TO NOT BE FORGOTTEN by John Bradley

I was gathering electricity with a spoon.  You were living
in Houston, Boston, London with that guy who liked to say:
My clothes think they’re who I think I am.  No one wants to
fall in love with a shoe worn by a cancer patient, though it would
make us immune.  I never met a matchstick that didn’t say:
Oh, don’t worry.   I know when to stop.  On the Washington Street
Bridge, he was selling vials of Bob Dylan’s rainwater.  To help
speed the end of the world, he said.  We have in common that
vein that throbs with electric sand.  One day a month, I promise,
I’ll let my mouth go fallow.  That musky fish bowl on top of your TV. 
Instead of a ring, you wore a Ben Franklin rolled around your wedding
finger.  To slow the day, place another mountain in your backpack. 
Please don’t tell me again that I never met a spud I didn’t like. 
A barrow is a heap of rubbish, a mountain, a mound of earth
and stones heaped over a grave.  More than weather resides
in that hole in the side of the catalpa.  Everything I say appears
more apparent when the stain on my shirt mutters mustard sombrero.
That musky fishbowl on top of your TV.  The night sleeps while it’s
awake, prowls while it sleeps.  After he said nothing he said,
I don’t want to be erased.  To speed the world’s end.  Is, was, why. 
Godzilla our last wilderness, our final home.