It's Here In The
       

Here in the newspaper—wreck of the East Bound.
A photograph bound to bring on cardiac asthenia.
There is a blur that mists the pages:
On one side's a gloom of dreadful harsh,
Then breaks flash lights up sheer.
There is much huge about. I suppose
        those no 's are people
        between that suffering of—
        (what have we more? for Christ's sake!
Something of a full stop of it
crash of blood and the still shock
        of stark sticks and an immense swift gloss
And two dead no 's lie aghast still
One casts a crazed eye and the other's
        closed dull
                the heap twists up
        hardening the unhard, unhardening
        the hardened

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Copyright © 2013 Russell Atkins All rights reserved
from Russell Atkins: On the Life & Work of an American Master
Pleiades Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission