Walls to Put Up, Walls to Take Down

[jdtnirvana]

Walls to put up, Walls to take down
 by Stephen Dobyns

The old madhouse in Santiago stood tucked back
behind the hospital on a side street to the cemetery,
walls of cheap brick, concrete through which
the inmates had bored little holes, and walking past

one could see dozens of cleft sticks with notes
offered to the passerby, some begging for money,

Comments

[pasajera]

That's a crazy intense poem.

I like this image best:
Sometimes with my wife,
if we haven't been quarreling, it feels like
we are sitting together without skin, a large basket
of confused body parts.

Yeah.

[jdtnirvana]

I think that with the cannibal stew, the criminal conversation bit and what it says of beauty and fashion (and I think materialism as well) stick out to me most (aha, stick out... like through the wall). It's a really visual poem for me, which is why I think I like it so much