Rage Wearing Brass Knuckles
National Portrait Gallery Rage Wearing Brass Knuckles D eath lurks beside the bed pretending to be professional. O nly undertakers and critics enjoy a captive audience this much. N urses glide through the room like exhausted angels on union break. O f all my organs, the liver resigned first, citing hostile conditions. T onight my heartbeat sounds like a pub closing in the rain. G ood whiskey ruined me with the patience of a loyal friend. O h, America poured bourbon into me like investors funding bad decisions. G entle is not a Welsh word; we gargle our lullabies with thunder. E ven as a boy I distrusted silence; it always sounded employed. N o man writes poems unless reality has already insulted him personally. T homas the drunk, they’ll say, because history loves reducing cathedrals to coasters. L anguage was the only religion that never asked me to kneel quietly. E very vowel I ever wrote arrived half-dressed and singing in the rain. I wrote villanelles because ordinary screami...
