The Warm Tyrant
The warm tyrant's
eyes are green,
cloudy green, soft and pliant.
But sitting here
I can only think of them
as black.
Black as if the cornea
had cancerously grown
and covered
the hazy green eyes
that fed me,
when they
were all I could see, and
held everything I didn't know:
everything that I would.
And now
they sit black,
cautious,
wounded,
refusing to nestle
like a roving eye does
across a spring green field,
almost as if
there is no more.
All has been given,
all there was,
even the photosynthesis of the eyes.
Grand Island
1977
Grand Island Series
©1977 The Warm Tyrant — Joseph W. Yarbrough
Reproduction prohibited without written permission.
eyes are green,
cloudy green, soft and pliant.
But sitting here
I can only think of them
as black.
Black as if the cornea
had cancerously grown
and covered
the hazy green eyes
that fed me,
when they
were all I could see, and
held everything I didn't know:
everything that I would.
And now
they sit black,
cautious,
wounded,
refusing to nestle
like a roving eye does
across a spring green field,
almost as if
there is no more.
All has been given,
all there was,
even the photosynthesis of the eyes.
Grand Island
1977
Grand Island Series
©1977 The Warm Tyrant — Joseph W. Yarbrough
Reproduction prohibited without written permission.