The Stopped Voices

The stopped voices go on speaking

The breezes had lost meadows

and found truck tires

blasting smoke at the sky

Flesh drifting seaward

a scarf of purple and orange

dissolving on the tongue and eye

A ruined taste in the mouth

of old bricks and dead plaster

the ash of burnt clothes and posters

Limestone lintel on the ground

the lion stretched above the head

hieratic and calm now grovels

Their feet pound the ten cent

beehive tombs of god kings

even firebugs on the street

Have faces of hammered gold

blushing in the turning lights

and the cat ache of sirens