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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