The Fifth of November

by Steven McCabe

I just listened to John Lennon sing

Remember, remember,

The fifth of November…

Boom!

The song ended with an explosion.

Pages ripped themselves out of my sketchbook

Paper filled the air

Now I smell gunpowder

I imagine smoke, can’t see where I’m going

Can’t see the gates in the dark.

Nothing in those spaces where

I thought

I would

Make some sort of mark.

Nothing needs to be this way.

I hear them in the cave

Missing space is a rung on the ladder

Vertical, horizontal, bendable

No matter what is or is not.

Guy Fawkes, November 5, 1605

Joan Miro, The Escape Ladder (From the Constellation Series) 1940

Neanderthal Cave Art, Spain, 64,000 years ago.