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The Fragile Stain

by Max Bouillet

"A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic."
--Joseph Stalin (1879 - 1953)

She breaks bottles in the parking lot.

Slowly, she fingers the jagged edges
and leaves streaks of her soul
smudged on the shattered surface.

Shards chew through
the ridges of her fingertips
and eventually find their way
into the wet breath of God.

The fragments of glass
course through her veins,
and gather in her heart
where they form a blood tinted
stained glass window.

Alone and surrounded by adversaries
I fall with blood in my mouth
and ringing in my ears.

I clutch at the shadows
of my killers
as flesh fails
and I give birth to my soul.

As I leave my body
and become an after-image
in the eyes of my enemies;
my vision blurs and
I see her with bleeding hands
behind the smeared glass.


We hover on opposing
sides of the fragile stain
separated behind
the remnants of broken bottles.

My heaven and
my hell
are found in the bloody
fingerprints of absentee Gods
hiding in the hearts
of the homeless.

11/26/2006

Posted on 11/27/2006
Copyright © 2024 Max Bouillet

Member Comments on this Poem
Posted by Quentin S Clingerman on 11/27/06 at 12:52 PM

In another unique poetic picture you describe the state of unregenerate mankind whose god is indeed absent.

Posted by Alison McKenzie on 11/28/06 at 02:52 AM

I love the way she is God, the way she decides her fate and yet doesn't, the way she looks at her body void of her soul through the stained glass, which is also the window of her heart - somehow she is separated from herself by the process within and so it also becomes the process without. Tragedy that is magically and symbolically powerful.

Posted by Katerina T Nix on 11/28/06 at 05:56 AM

Wow! This is really amazing, Max. I loved the imagery and the flow of this piece. Well done! Kat :)

Posted by Kristina Woodhill on 12/05/06 at 01:47 AM

This is so well written. Nothing is overdone as it might be. There is a steady beat to this, matter of fact, awful, and the last stanza is quite perfect.

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