Shopping Cart
    items

      August 11, 2016Willie James KingThe Existential Self

      Once in a while an owl barks
      above the black bog, and I turn
      another page of a big book
      that was written by a Russian
      who tells an interesting tale
      about a woman who cheats
      on her husband, and who throws
      herself before a train. If not a knife
      or a gun, who hasn’t thought of
      leaping from some point that’s final,
      if only no more than a moment.
      Outside, the wind moans
      like a brooding woman
      who is in constant conversation
      with that owl as both know
      the night is theirs. I put aside
      the huge text to turn a phrase
      that might become a poem, that
      might capture my feelings, only as
      close as words can come to naming,
      or exacting the existential self

      from #18 - Winter 2002