Great Expectations
I picked up the Blu-ray for a dollar:
2012 version with Ralph Fiennes,
my favorite actor, playing Magwitch.
Didn’t know this film existed,
2012 my last year in the pen
where news about classic adaptations &
obscure favorite actors had been scarce.
Out over a decade now, I would’ve
watched it at a higher price,
but ignorance saves money:
one lesson from the Dickens tale.
Best not to learn how sausage is made,
right? But that’s a different story
from a different book
not turned into a film with Ralph, &
isn’t he wonderful as the convict
seeking a sort of redemption?
Much better at the part than I am,
lying in bed & watching a movie
when I should be learning
how to rebuild my life.
Dinner for One
Sitting alone at Pizza Hut,
first time in years, dinner for one —
no friends, company, love—
waiting for a cast-iron pan to steam the table,
liquified cheese to burn my lonely mouth,
and wordless tongue.
I think about years past
when I’d come to a place like this
to buy cocaine off a driver
or be served smiles by my closest companion
who would’ve been my lover
if I hadn’t chosen the kindness of no.
Not like that now. There’s me & the pizza,
a mournful tenderness shared
between devourer & devoured.
Yet I can’t conclude my story of the past.
My thoughts go back & back & back.
Was I not alone then, too,
searching for something to consume
that would fill all spaces in me?
Did I ever find it? I don’t know.
Pepperoni searing my lips
says otherwise, as does silence,
the loudest sound one hears.
Sansho the Bailiff
Doing what’s right leads to sadness.
Doing what’s wrong leads to sadness.
Slavery sings in its long, sad years.
Cruelty invokes suffering, &
suffering is sadness of a fire going out.
To escape, one escapes into sadness.
Cleverness & vengeance offer
momentary triumphs over sadness,
but still there is sadness.
A song on a woman’s lips is sadness.
A song on the wind is sadness,
a sad, sad song of sadness on the wind.
Loss is sadness, & love of many
for the lost is sadness, too.
Saddest is the sadness of reunion,
proof that even happiness
has the blood of sadness on its hands.
*
Ace Boggess is author of six books of poetry, most recently Escape Envy. His writing has appeared in Indiana Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, Hanging Loose, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes and tries to stay out of trouble. His seventh collection, Tell Us How to Live, is forthcoming in 2024 from Fernwood Press.
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