time honored

TWICE THE BECOMING SAINT
perhaps three or four times the living
has brought to use, our joy

a poem

when bit on the halycon days of december
in a dark cloud
brushing my teeth in a mirror
hoping that neither vanity nor the mirror fail me
feeling empty
but not knowing or blaming
or feeling empty

spitting and returning
smelling like smoke
always spitting
coughing sometimes
consumed by fever
tested by flames

counting toys on the shelf
before they are even hatched

separating tenses
eating tenses, devouring the past
sometimes we learn before we love
sometimes we love before we learn

i have a phrase stuck in my mind
it's been there for years
without hyperbole
i cannot say where it was constructed
or even what it means
is it from a movie?
some poem, some work? some overheard remark.
I cannot say.
i've considered it; tattooed on my arm or chest or leg
or dick

it goes:
"terror stalks the hearts of men"

perhaps a google search will solve this

Our world has fallen again
into the shadow of war,
and terror stalks souls
in many lands.

that, the preface from a book entitled
Fulton Sheen's Wartime Prayer Book
the text admits to being written in 1943
the collector assumes it is still

relevant.

so
i guess i should not be surprised.
terror stalks
as it always has.

my father always wore these
heavy chamis shirts
they were like things you would wax a car with
soft but fucking thick

i don't think anyone wears those anymore
but maybe they're missing out
shit's probably warm

i remember when i was young
and i wrote something about wires and shoes and girls
well a girl
and when i was brushing my teeth
i thought of her and she thought of me