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"Equality of Opportunity"
by Ariane ScottTruth-cover with bright buoyant spew
sinking outlying others
beneath waters so dense and untamed,
rise and divide taking land taking eyes
as visions of gold and streets
paved with chance serve to deaf us
dumb us blind us and bathe us
in smooth flowing lies like warm evening tide
while rivers of phrase erupt excess flesh
lying poor on their backs in snow-mud and
ash, no cleanse is in sight for majority.
How otherness washes us guiltless in sleep,
such comfort in notions not given to
peace but to parallel lines with such
space in between, a gap flanked
by beam and by gloom and no bronze
on the cheek of a child deprived shade,
the sunniest blaze falls to shadow
when noon sets to rest behind capital moats
and bridges are leveled but three blocks away,
three nations removed as if chance
were not green nor boots heavy with clay
set in loam pinned by man like a hand
on the mouth, so many left only to breathe,
to finger the phrase.
08/24/2010 Posted on 08/25/2010
Copyright © 2024 Ariane Scott
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by Laura Doom on 08/25/10 at 11:30 AM Your fingers of speech deliver the massage in fleshcreep swells of spring-tied recession -- I am deeply oppressed :> |
| Posted by Charlie Morgan on 08/25/10 at 02:47 PM ...ariane, glad the earth is oblate, 'cause you covered it all, m'lady...great write, great title. |
| Posted by Jim Benz on 08/25/10 at 06:52 PM The quotation marks of the title set it aside as an object for the poem to decipher, while simultaneously (and ironically) calling its supposed objectivity into question. I like that. "Capital moats" indeed ... |
| Posted by Gabriel Ricard on 08/26/10 at 12:46 PM Wild imagery, wild language, but it all has that controlled chaos energy going for it. Loved this. |
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