The windows in the back room
of Johnnie’s Mission Inn
have painted themselves
shut. The door
is a sleepless mattress,”[…
sprung
at head and hip points.
Still, there is air enough
for the moderator’s brief
announcements: one
by one, we strain forward
in our wooden folding chairs
to hear his whispery listing
of the day’s activities:
– unlimited wandering about the room,
– gazing through double-paned windows,
– Beat the Devil competitions.
Lunch, of course, is on our own.
He hands us each a name badge
which reads: Anonymous
. Anonymous Anonymous
–Barbara Sabol,
Original Ruse (2011)
Accents Publishing
More from Original Ruse and Barbara Sabol:
- “Escape Artists at the Movies”
- “Broach”
- “On Considering the Purchase of a New Mattress”
- “Wedlock”
- Original Ruse at the Accents Store
Barbara Sabol’s poetry and prose has appeared in Public-Republic, Blood Lotus, Poets 350, the Tupelo Press Poetry Project,Tributaries, and on the Akron Art Museum’s website. She has an MFA from Spalding University. Barbara is a long-practicing speech therapist, living in northeastern Ohio with her partner and dogs.
WOW. Now that is a poem. I wish I commented on more poems here, but in the flood of information on the internet, it is too easy to just let all but the most special go by. This one, “At the Loneliness Convention” by Barbara Sabol, is most special. What are we when all is stripped away…”Anonymous
. Anonymous Anonymous ?” “All is vanity” Mary Chapin Carpenter once created a line in her song “I am a town”, in which her character says “I’m a Baptist like my daddy and Jesus knows my name.”, and this we pray. Glen Berger in his play “Underneath the Lintel” asked “are we just crickets behind the couch?” “Anonymous
. Anonymous Anonymous”, but he also asks “You say you have never seen a miracle? Are you sure? How can you know that?” Now I must meditate.