How near the relentless sea we contrive
Our sand constructions in lusty ambition
Patting indifference with dinky spades
To shape and compact dreams into life
Soaring spires for professed ideals
Damp tunnels for hidden intents
Domes bulging over assembled dignitaries
Questing for honors in uncomfortable shoes
Parapets where the smooth pebbles mingle
With shells selected for their milky appeal
And a communal garden with kelp overgrown
Where bottle caps and washed-up flotsam hang
In sum a kingdom brave behind its moat
Though every noon a concerned prophet
Creaks forth onto his balcony like a springed cuckoo
To tsk at the tide and the seawall’s decay
Oh mother father come and look now
Your most precious creation beaming
That such a thing hath here been wrought
To pause your bickering and chime your praise
Like all the others the wide-eyed children
Who made their days in ages past
On these selfsame grains of sun and salt
With their buckets and their bids for glory
This is where they raised their castles
This is where they fell to their knees
On this sousing strip of inbetween
Where eternity gulps moments
lots of people are losing their heads
as the bus turns to left or right
they rolling from side to side
the heads
and when you try to walk past them
they bite
and once more to sea!
this ancient schooner
yet has another sea-ride
in its rotting planks
the mast can still hold loft a sail!
and these my weathered hands
though less dexterous than afore
have the more experience
know their way with hook and tackle
and soon will heave unto the deck
a thrashing tuna
and with a grin the inveterate ocean-robber
will stuff a pipe
and regard the final trophy by his side
and then the horizon and the salty waves
which he will leave to younger men—
before laying up for good at port
to sit by the pane and foghorns’ bellow
we glide on invisible rails
grades of pressure and temperature
filaments of gas distinctions
clouds going through clouds
the sunbrush how daintily it dabs
our furious contours
so adamantly asserted
with claims upon claims
and puffing cumulus pride—
we bestrut our moment
making from nothingness and air
what was called a summer scene
an hour or so before the rain
Soap bubbles
Big wobbly ones
Smaller spheres of a sociable sort
Even one inside another
Immaculately conceived
Thought bubbles
Inflating multiplying drifting
Rearranging and annexing
Little rainbows of wishful thinking
Enclosing gases of concern
Life bubbles
Reflecting what
Long faces mouthing commands
Secret dreams of hubba bubba
Ancient purposes served at night
World bubbles
Foaming profusely at every seam
Sideways longways always
Started and restarted
Editing the heavenly concordats
Let’s wash the thing with love, and pray, and wait
If you hold your breath and listen
You may hear in the other room
A lowering hiss
And the question about to be asked
Milk sugar lemon
All our power is gone
Our time came, it went
Name tags have been replaced
Different mints in the drawer
Their fear is gone so their love is too
Though the nicest ones retain enough fondness
For a two-minute chat
Before some other duty calls
*
But don’t think we walked away with nothing
We left with scars and stories
And so our dream was fulfilled
For all we ever really wanted
Was something to say
And something to leave unsaid
*
The grandchildren are gathered
To see the scars and hear the stories
But they will not sit still would rather have their own
Adventures, their own scars and stories
Well then let us watch them play
Let them come to us with their scraped knees
Let them tell us what’s what and how it’s done
We will kneel down on our clicking knees
And blow gently on their boo-boos
And we’ll listen closely to their accounts
Thus are our scars shown, our stories told
And then we’ll serve ourselves the cognac
the big creaky wheel
a thousand years to turn
thousand meetings, thousand emails, thousand rules
to keep things from changing
and heaven forbid
the setting of a precedent
yet in this magisterial inefficiency
there are spaces and hiding places
for fragile weeds to bloom
and maybe bear some singular fruit
like the FHI, a misfit prodigy
daytime a tweedy don
at dark a superhero
flying off into the night
cape a-fluttering
to intercept villains and stop catastrophes
and why not base it here?
our spandex costumes
blend in with the scholarly gowns
our unusual proclivities
are shielded from ridicule
where mortar boards are still in vogue
the rush the rush the rush
the fuse that’s burning down
information glitters
rain of idea sparks
the thing is sprinting
skipping, taking off
to the waiting black powder
now everything is happening
faster than you can think
at the speed of genius
at the speed of a thousand geniuses competing
at the speed of a civilization-powered light beam
this special time, maybe to be revisited later
but not really experienced as it unfolds
we can see what should be done
the vase falling slo-mo to the ground
but we cannot help it
the signals take too long from brain to muscle
we are like statues
saucer-eyed witnesses
to explosive fate
and so it is done
now it is out of our hands
cast into the realm of higher forces
where what will happen will happen
what started as clueless curiosity
everything done without purpose
sheltered from moral responsibility
by blindness and childishness
our stupidity a little fig leaf
that hides the raging erection
or makes it possible to pretend we cannot see
mercy for all that hurts
mercy for the puzzled stare
mercy for the faceless victim
the forgotten
the irrelevant
the ill at ease
the silent pain inside
is it still yesterday
the cry hangs in the air
the echo won’t die down
crank up the volume, let the booze flow
distribute the zip bags with the synthesis
cosmic ravers
how hard we must laugh
how loudly celebrate
how ravenously kiss
to mute the sigh of a woodlouse
the young ones glimmer briefly
like fourth of july firework
then fall to dust
in the nursing home sits an old rocker
all that remains are his fading tattoos
smells like centenarian spirit, how low
well listen up youth, here comes philosophy
like a hand outstretched from the back of a limo
scattering Benjamins for y’all:
strut on you arrogant pricks
shine on you daughters of ivy
occupy your privilege like a desert garden
fig-nude amongst almonds and apricots
let us feast our eyes on your impudence
as you slurp that rough-shelled coconut with a pastel straw
A river of blood
incipient in dark caves
dripping from bats
then out into the open
winding through agricultural fields
and battlefields
collecting tributes
a rat’s skull, a caterpillar
the petal of a hyacinth
widening as it goes along
and picking up speed
down to where we are now.
And then?
Maybe round the next bend
Not much longer
Already can be heard
the murmured rumor
of the final fall
fall
fall
fall
into the great turbine.
If we weren’t so busy making ends meet
If we weren’t so busy
If we weren’t so busy doing nothing
If we weren’t so busy whistling a ditty
Might we not wonder:
How do the blades turn?
And what do they power?
into the hopper goes
the queen of hearts
two-faced treachery
the extra ace
sighs and jubilations
the tangled neurons of the scholarly head
thorns and twigs
the little louse and the fat king
all that was born goes into the hopper
and in a bloody mist spits out
the woodchips of history
a nice jogging trail
you who lope along here later
with thoughts of dinner
mind what you tread underfoot
The ambitious gaze of Napoleon?
The cries of Latimer?
Though surely the odds favor a bumpkin fart
Took the path of least resistance
Ended up in this hole
Snug and comfy in my circumscribed existence
Sometimes, awake in bed,
I look up at the moon-disc and wonder
What winds are sweeping the heath now, what outlaw riders
But less and less frequently
See the plucked chicken
Its throat ineptly slit
Over the abattoir drain
Bleeding its life away
See the man running
Running for his life
Chased by a rabid dog
The pit-bull called Eternity
See the fountain gushing
From fifty fishes’ mouths
Various parabolas
Same filthy water
The astral glockenspiel quivers
As our bodies align in the orbit of Venus;
Galloping stallions and mares
Print with their hooves, pixel by pixel,
The lights and shadows of mortal life,
Pink flesh for the gods’ inspection –
Who clap their hands together at the sight;
For the heavens love the authentic peep.
Whence the orbs appear to us sublunars
Empty, mute, and dimly lit;
While on the other side the jamboree,
Abuzz with primal harmony,
Fluoresces with the ecstasy of being.
On the bank at the end
Of what was there before us
Gazing over to the other side
On what we can become
Veiled in the mist of naïve speculation
We are busy here preparing
Rafts to carry us across
Before the light goes out leaving us
In the eternal night of could-have-been