Paul Hoover

 

The Bowl

The bowl was full, and the soldiers were full of love. 

They had gone in search of nothing but the wind

that was full of wind, as the mountain was mountain

and the gun gun.  The bowl was on the table, blue,

next to a cup, steel, and another sense of the bowl

surrounded the world in part.  It was guarded

by no one; no one was large enough, no one was yet world.

But a bowl of apples was guarded by a sergeant,

round to the point of roundness,  but with arms and legs

and eyes.  He was wary, as was demandedt,

to prevent the soldiers from eating to an excess

we can only imagine, we who live in excess.

A bowl of apples then, which only the eyes could eat,

at a prospective distance, a distance that changed

with each step of the sergeant, rounder with each glance,

a ball of a man, a resolute energy demanding

that only our eyes could eat.  And the dust blew

and the walls stood--the whispering of cars

on a road of dust and blood; sounds of explosions

and the flinching of a gun, choking and choking.

The bowl observed the windows and the green land beyond

and remained the bowl it was, all perception,

and the men stood in line, because that was the form,

form being what we are, our limit, the sleeve

that fits the arm, and the wind that had no sleeve.

Thin line of soldiers, now thinner, thinner everyday.

 

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