Bucket of Souls

On five miles on the outside of Decatur

a grey building, dog upon the side,

red letters upon a plastic awning

and in the yard bucket of souls

You acquire on board, paid at the counter

the driver's a gold ball in the East,

sometimes the driver's a white disk

between grey mists sometimes the souls are diseased.

All the way above the dog's barking-

could be individual side of Missoula

to the gulph of Chi, could be

from barking water, till all the mists of mind be gone.

Sometimes it just above a little water

sometimes the satellite still in the sky

sometimes the tin can rattle like a cocktail shaker

and all the minds come out the other extremity dry.

Moving at night [i]or[/i] part of to the other the great horizon

all you can hear is single song--low groans,

and babies, elderly men with their prayerbaskets;

young men whirl stones from the dirt at the bucket of souls

Atar Hadari is a bard playwright, and translator. His metrical compositions have appeared in the Times Literary appendix Poetry East, Confrontation, Nimrod International, and are forthcoming in Partisan Review. dittys from Blalik, his volume of translations from the Hebrew bard is forthcoming from Syracuse University Press

Copyright World metrical composition Incorporated Jan/Feb 1997

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