To stand aside,
\nTo be left alone,
\nTo live unnoticed–
\nAll now too much.<\/p>\n
A terrible simplifier comes.<\/p>\n
To live\u2014
\nToo much.<\/p>\n
A terrible simplifier.<\/p>\n
You speak
\nand stumble in the toils of speech.
\nToo much–
\nNow hear the predetermined answer.<\/p>\n
Don’t you see?
\nThe summoner never stops
\nand none return.<\/p>\n
You thought this bitterness had passed.
\nThis bitterness will never pass.<\/p>\n
Another,
\nand another,
\nand another comes.<\/p>\n
THREE MEMORIES<\/strong><\/p>\n My composition book soft-covered pink like salmon flesh Two black boys stop me on the way to school Arms pale and hair Dutch-boy and brown ASSINAROS<\/strong>\t<\/p>\n Once, beaten men came to the river Students who heard that tragedy Sun for no reason danced with the river: Such beauty and indifference mastered me I said: The bluff pronouncement almost worked:<\/p>\n I thought I looked on naked nature; ABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/strong> Students who heard that tragedy By Aaron Evan Baker<\/b>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":155,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/155"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53577\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nand fat with words
\nA picture of a forest so for me Primeval Wood
\ninfused with dragonflies and dinosaurs
\nThe fresh-book reek
\nstays and will stay.<\/p>\n
\nLook at this hunky one says and the other stepping up behind
\nyeah look at this hunky fucka look
\nI flinch
\nand flinch today.<\/p>\n
\nLaughter at others’ laughter and a quick twist
\nher bottom pivoting just so
\nAs motion perfect
\nbut she walks away
\nAlways she walks away. <\/p>\n
\nTo stage a fitting d \u00e9nouement.
\nSome may have prayed: \u201cHide us oh Lord”;
\nSome may have begged sweet drink
\nAs needful children beg their mother;
\nSome may have blessed the kindly river,
\nSavior from thirst and feathered death,
\nAs they went with their armor to the mud.<\/p>\n
\nBeside what may have been the river,
\nConjectured what the author meant:
\nGuessed empire condignly punished,
\nGuessed no rebuke (all rule who can),
\nOr shelved grand themes and marked
\nA warning, so, should bad day come,
\nThey’d stand clear while others drowned.<\/p>\n
\nWhite fire, brown fire, blue;
\nA bird called, and a fat fly buzzed,
\nSuiting their purposes.<\/p>\n
\nTill, falling out with artifice,
\nI longed to scour the floodscape clean.<\/p>\n
\nWe stand by a Sicilian river,
\nNo brown god or slaking savior,
\nNo tributary of our musings,
\nNo end ordained by durant prose,
\nBut a mute given, where men broke.<\/p>\n
\nBut I could not pin down the river.
\nLike metals moving,
\nFacets of the flood-face wink and dash;
\nA bird cries;
\nFlies mob some ordure on the bank.
\nMen came and prayed, and a mud-slurred voice
\nAvows in full the tragedy.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Aaron-Evan-Baker-photo-300x225.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nAaron Evan Baker<\/b> was born in Chicago, Illinois. He studied Ancient History at the University of Chicago, and has a Ph.D. in Classics from Brown University. He is an attorney (J.D. Northwestern) and college teacher, and lives in Evanston, Illinois with his wife, Stephanie, and their daughter, Laura.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Aaron-Evan-Baker-photo-420x179.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nBeside what may have been the river,
\nConjectured what the author meant:
\nGuessed empire condignly punished,
\nGuessed no rebuke (all rule who can),
\nOr shelved grand themes and marked
\nA warning, so, should bad day come,
\nThey’d stand clear while others drowned.<\/p>\n