Suits and ties

 Suits and ties

The noon of the Kardomah boys, sitting there;

note their notes, handed and palmed; there,

waiting on the edge, the microphone

intussuscepted of their desires to say

what they know in the listening, 

and in their trussed looks,

that a day is laying down a time,

when time was short, after the war.

Words were trusted then, offered in condolence 

for the impertinence of the hurting times.

A moment in the Grove’s groove of recording,

speaking it as a gospel; 

their opinions as fresh as blood in lemon juice.

Hush, the moment is about to start,

to move into an irretrievable goneness;

for even in this painting there is a timed loop.

We see what has gone, all those light years ago

when men did these things and got away with it.

Their spent being our reward to lay aside as treasure.

Our chests swell with a pride they would deride,

yet there they are; the Kardomah boys,

although their graves have daisies now.

Look at them, how could one not love their sartorial inelegance?

Resplendent in their reverie. In their suits and ties they died,

and all we have is their works. The gems of their firmament 

held in the fix of a pigment of the artist’s talent to say.

That’s what they might have said - if.