Free Write, Week 10 (make-up)

"You Will Forget My Name"

I.

After you praise me in your dreams,
you will forget my name.
I fought the good fight,
and now I wear a blue coat;
I sleep next to Mister Jones
and bathe myself
in modesty and slight regret.

My heart cries out for a cease-fire.

II.

I pushed a red wheelbarrow
through the rain and carried
the heavy words of a talking head
upon my broken back.

I floated down great rivers on a raft
carved out of English stone;
I fed the hungry piranhas,
and I made the sand snakes shiver.

III.

I wear a mask soaked in the blood
of a dying night.

My hear screams out for mercy.

I lie in my bed and as my flesh melts away,
I feel the weight of earth above me.
The stone that marks my bed remembers me
and the tilled soil remembers me,
but you will soon forget my name.