The White Album

John Sibley Williams
| poetry

 

I am listening    by which I mean

humming over      by which I

mean talking over a bit less than

usual       to one of those

songs I’m told     have molded

generations which I assume must

mean something has changed

inside simply from      that listening

which     if there were an ocean

or cups joined uselessly by string

between us might make sense but

all together here in one city on one

uncalm night bearing its torches

like what         my great-

grandfather called the good

old days    the truth is I don’t know

if these headphones are enough

to drown out    to drown myself

out of        if this song spun

backwards     would sound the same

John Sibley Williams is the author of As One Fire Consumes Another (Orison Poetry Prize), Skin Memory (Backwaters Prize), and Summon (JuxtaProse Chapbook Prize). A twenty three-time Pushcart nominee and winner of various awards, John serves as editor of The Inflectionist Review, teaches for Literary Arts, and is a poetry agent.

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