A Tone Poem

It is no longer night. But there is a sameness

Of intention, all the same, in the ways

We address it, rude

Color of what an amazing world,

As it goes flat, or rubs off, and this

Is a marvel, we think, and are careful not to go past it.

But it is the same thing we are all seeing,

Our world. Go after it,

Go get it boy, says the man holding the stick.

Eat, says the hunger, and we plunge blindly in again,

Into the chamber behind the thought.

We can hear it, even think it, but can’t get disentangled

from our brains.

Here, I am holding the winning ticket. Over here.

But it is all the same color again, as though the climate

Dyed everything the same color. It’s more practical,

Yet the landscape, these billboards, age as rapidly as before.