A Poem by Sy Roth

The Winter of Their Discontent
A Dusty Soleless Army

Dust army
Petite jury of lead soldiers
Arrayed on their field of battle
A phalanx of them as they
Prepare to march into the trash bag.
Memories.

Apothegm --
-- Silent neighbors tell tales --

Moccasins worn thin,
Pointed roach stoppers from a bygone age,
Oxfords and lost chain names --
Buster Browns.

Time gobbled them up
Ruins, vestiges of soldiers
Twisted into your shapes.
Hobbling,
Shuffling transcendence of corporeality.
Tendentious eye-popping Igor --
Step sleepless into the good night,
Remnants
Resting at the foot of the closet.

Rusty shirts limp, hanging above
wrinkled trousers on wooden hangers --

Two-stepped to the cattle car
Three-stepped to embroidered numbers
On the insides of his arm,
Remnants of an ago
When wooden clogs played a rhapsodic marching tune
On the endless miles of rutted roads.

And times, ill-fated, he stood
Until tired, he laid down
Snored himself into oblivion.
Tatterdemalion man exited
Soles faced up,
Toes curved leftward
Homage to a crooked existence.

The orphan army
Sweaty interiors oiled black with his being
With their tips curled; the scuffed toes and angled heels
Telling tales trippingly,
Their loose tongues pillaging truths,
The lollygagging laces limp and frayed
Slather slurpy raspberries of Bronx-cheer ululations
At the living.

The smells of urine and feces couple with the little troupe
And the light from the single-pane window
Washes the hospital bed in cool remembrance . . .
They piffle unheard
Speaking of life in the soles
Discard like the sloughed off skin of the original snake.




Sy Roth comes riding in and then canters out.  Oftentimes, head is bowed by reality; other times, he proud to have said something noteworthy.  Retired after forty-two years as teacher/school administrator, he now resides in Mount Sinai, far from Moses and the tablets.  This has led him to find words for solace.  He spends his time writing and playing his guitar.  He has published in Visceral Uterus, Amulet, BlogNostics, Every Day Poets, Barefoot Review, Haggard and Halloo, Misfits Miscellany, Larks Fiction Magazine, Danse Macabre, Bitchin' Kitsch, Bong is Bard, Humber Pie, Poetry Super Highway, Penwood Review, Masque Publications, Foliate Oak, Miller's Pond Poetry, The Artistic Muse, Word Riot, Samizdat Literary Journal, Right Hand Pointing, The Screech Owl, Epiphany, Red Poppy Review, Big River, Poehemians, Nostrovia Poetry's Milk and Honey, Siren, Palimpset, Dead Snakes, Euphemism, Humanimalz Literary Journal, Ascent Aspirations, Fowl Feathered Review, Vayavya, Wilderness House Journal, Aberration Labyrinth, Mind[less] Muse, Em Dash and Kerouac's Dog.