Aether

This poem is a response to George Oppens Poem: Of Being Numerous 1-22. Link to Oppens poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53223/of-being-numerous-sections-1-22

1 
                We live amongst ourselves
		& that is what sickens us.
		To know ourselves, we must look at what bothers us.

		A nothingness,
		Known as a black hole,

		That exist between the human eyes.

		The tales of wickedness
		Our only versions of our worst responses to Ether.
		The responses of those who hate the Ether in themselves.

		The old town that was burnt down was called Greenwood.
		It was inside Tulsa, Oklahoma.
		There was Ether, and so there were responses to Ether: ignorance.
		

                Collards grew crooked, and watches were gold. 
                Skin was brown sugar and obsidian 
                and never burned beneath the sun.

		I try to imagine black Wall Street, Greenwood, 
                and it feels like fiction to me.
		I can only see how the vision of beauty erodes in pale fingers
		Where jealousy is sure to breed.
2
		The Ether is the fifth and final element.
		The substance unseen that makes heavenly bodies move spherically.

		The response to the angels in Greenwood was destruction.
		Sodom & Gomorrah, 
                
                or rather

		Trading hospitality
		For inhospitality, 
                And they say chivalry is dead.

		An astounding marvel.

		Our tales of wickedness
		Told to our children as warnings.

                Not to become the adults that raised them.
		It is merely folklore to raise good children, afterall. 

22
                No, three just 22.
		Confusion

		In the sense of mediocrity.
		They could do better, but chose the latter
                
                with only a rope at the end for their next victim.
		Confusion in the sense of Rage. 

		

Art By: Francisco Goya. Saturn Devouring His Son.