By PETER ORESICK

I can’t hear when I am sleeping.

I fear the stalker, the tomb

robber, the contractor

who measures my sleeping soul.

His hatred, my tomb.

Let this wall be my tongue.

I am always awake, sick of your chatter

& your noxious grin.

You ignore the evidence,

you don’t know the procedures.

You make it up as you go.

I can’t hear you. My ears are deaf

to your monologues. You exist but

I never seek you out. I can fend for

Myself. My portfolio is slowly

growing.

I know what to do:

Keep silent. Everyone will walk away

in time, abandoning me like a corpse

at the lip of a grave.

This is science. This is living.

Only a set of genes like my mother’s

could foretell a life like mine.

I don’t know these punks.

I can’t hear their music.

My brain can’t hear. Seek

the enemy & flush him out

. Hate is a boom box blaring

From a block away, daring you

to silence the music.

From “Iconoscope: New and Selected Poems by Peter Oresick Peter Oresick (pronounced o-RES-ik) (1955-2016) was a poet, publisher, professor, and painter of Carpatho-Rusyn descent. The son and grandson of glassworkers, Peter grew up in the working-class factory town of Ford City, PA located northeast of Pittsburgh on the Allegheny River. His work explores the themes of work, workers, and the working class, as well as family, regional history, and the interplay between the sacred and the secular.  His poetry volumes include Iconoscope: New & Selected Poems, Warhol-o-Rama, and Definitions.

(TMC newspaper VOL.48 No.10 December 2018. All rights reserved)