The Drowning Dream

Augie March

Compositor: Glenn Richards

The Drowning Dream

Well our dogs get along, but have you noticed how easy
evil dialogues of ours come out of wanting,
for so long, an easy laughter, to feel guilty for some -

Throw us in the oven where the angels fly,
They still need to eat
She's clean, she keeps a clean house, she can cook alright,
But I no longer have meat

In the middle of the field at the height of the eclipse,
when all that we could see were the fiery whips
of that hot-headed god, hot-headed god and wild,
perpetually running from his wife and child

- I was born in the bottom of a boat,
Of glass between the sea and me
Upward from the floor they'd float,
Bodies from the drowning dream

What do you make in the furnace of your chest?
The same as she makes in the locket of her breast.
Here's where the buds in the coal-chocked tomb go hard,
clear and deadly and never ever bloom

- There were fifty-four people in the back of a truck,
They were only sleeping
When we come to pick them up,
Safe within our keeping

Sixty-eight bullets for my wife and I,
They will never be satisfied
Strength and purpose fringed by fire,
Fire I was born in the bottom of a boat,
Of glass between the sea and me
Upward from the floor they'd float,
Bodies from the drowning dream.