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Don't Go To The Barn
by Tom Sleigh from Antaeus and collected in the Pushcart Book of Poetry
Don't Go To The Barn
The brick of the asylum shimmered in the sun
As I watched the black hood of your depression
Lower down across your face immobile
But for the eyes staring off into the crystal
Blue bracing the scorched mountain.
Fire like a razor had swept the rock face clean....
Cut off from your despair, I stared across the lawn
To your drug-blinkered gaze staring down
The shivering, flashing eyes of the aspen:
Blinking back that glare, I saw your heart eaten
By the gloom of the weather-warped barn
Off behind the orchard alleys convulsing
Into bloom, saw you walk into the shudder
Of blossoms rippling down in spasm
Of cool wind, the weeds you tread under
Springing back bristling, the tough, fibrous green
Closing in behind you, the chill brushings
Of the leaves feathering dew across your skin.
The barn like a grey flame burns above the bloom,
The hoof-cratered mud, glistening in the sun.
Squelching as you slog across the yard.
And now you enter into the raftered
Damp of lofty spaces cut by the veer
And slice of scaly wings, knot the knot hard,
Loop the rope around the beam, the zero
Of the noose dangling down. Your gaze swings
To mind, and I see your changes narrow:
Sprawled on the table, the volts axing
Through your skull, you jerk and shake,
Your body drugged to flab trembling and trembling,
Your teeth clenching jolt after jolt until crackling
in your brain a voice of fire speaks,
Divinely disapproving: "Don't go the the barn
And try to hang yourself. Don't go to the barn
And try to hang yourself. Don't go to the barn
And try to hang yourself. Rose, don't go to the barn."
Don't Go To The Barn
The brick of the asylum shimmered in the sun
As I watched the black hood of your depression
Lower down across your face immobile
But for the eyes staring off into the crystal
Blue bracing the scorched mountain.
Fire like a razor had swept the rock face clean....
Cut off from your despair, I stared across the lawn
To your drug-blinkered gaze staring down
The shivering, flashing eyes of the aspen:
Blinking back that glare, I saw your heart eaten
By the gloom of the weather-warped barn
Off behind the orchard alleys convulsing
Into bloom, saw you walk into the shudder
Of blossoms rippling down in spasm
Of cool wind, the weeds you tread under
Springing back bristling, the tough, fibrous green
Closing in behind you, the chill brushings
Of the leaves feathering dew across your skin.
The barn like a grey flame burns above the bloom,
The hoof-cratered mud, glistening in the sun.
Squelching as you slog across the yard.
And now you enter into the raftered
Damp of lofty spaces cut by the veer
And slice of scaly wings, knot the knot hard,
Loop the rope around the beam, the zero
Of the noose dangling down. Your gaze swings
To mind, and I see your changes narrow:
Sprawled on the table, the volts axing
Through your skull, you jerk and shake,
Your body drugged to flab trembling and trembling,
Your teeth clenching jolt after jolt until crackling
in your brain a voice of fire speaks,
Divinely disapproving: "Don't go the the barn
And try to hang yourself. Don't go to the barn
And try to hang yourself. Don't go to the barn
And try to hang yourself. Rose, don't go to the barn."