Here and now I breathe
in between breaths evenly
spring’s syncopations.
Then and there I quote
a seven-hundred-year-old
poet of winter.
In hand saved from hell
yellow squash and green memories
last year’s and my next.
After hard work’s rest
xylophone and native flute
accompany storms.
With a Biblical name and inklings
out of Babylon how could it be
either perfect or a surprise?
Looked at like a decadent
breakfast in proper piles
on a colorful plate prior to
the kicking in of appetite and the
deconstruction of the ensemble.
Disheveled like a sunset
the derangement of beauty
rolls the dice and likely
gets lost in yesterday’s
silently fermenting heap.
As high above us as underneath
comets, asteroids, dust and possibly
stars agree on saying nothing.
Kernel and lineless boundaries
yolk in faux gold frames
a career of windswept portraits
with lightning-struck furniture
in a flame-retardant foreground.
With a Biblical name and inklings
out of Babylon how could it be
either perfect or a surprise?
A swath of generation
several yards of social
linen pulled not too tightly
across the long table nobody
sits around looks very nice
unstained by negotiations.
Electronically the professor
scratches out first thoughts
straightens out seconds
makes fourths of thirds sucking
out controversy and leaving
dependability and a gulp.
Expressing no confusion
a lip of earth rises
the top as if to swallow
the bottom lip below it
wondering what it can do
knowing only following.
We send satellites up up
and away like evening prayers
to orbit above our concerns
as if we did not realize
talk is not contained in
mouths opening and closing.
Along the sides and in the middle
of the broad street of incapacity
walk in myopic light drizzle
ten thousand one-footed
citizens of the nation of tension.
Some of them want to ride buses
but none arrive and none will.
Some look for subway entrances
to tunnels long lived in by dogs.
We were left to run through crowded ruse.
Beer and wine for the gourmands
calories like confetti descending
advertising for the old-become-young
consumption for the free spending.
Nation stuck in the ground like corn
where the cattle dance on wasted food
where we were born and born again
where city chokes town and country
where pregnant wilderness is spurned.
Beer and wine for the gourmands
calories like confetti descending
advertising for the old-become-young
consumption for the free spending.
Fence built between
private and public space
all eyes averted
all actions segregated.
Corazon just
one word makes a song
just one beat
all day long driven.
Me and the bird tapping
you and the bird flown
back again.
The very human body
intakes universal snippets
from mud to flowers
and outputs sciences.
Lying on your back
on the grass do not speak
the words will come eventually
to seedlike blow away.
Me and the bird tapping
you and the bird flown
back again.
What the teacher does not know
is muddled into an open discussion
subtely swayed is her way under
guise of democratic logic.
The pastor of a trusting congregation
selects a favorite didactic passage
and frames it in pop assumptions
the conclusion is inevitable.
Are you sure? Don’t be so
positive without some emptiness
to temper your temporarily
full-bellied mind.
Legs bare and clothing disrupted
a lover makes an innocent suggestion
that would not be considered seriously
outside the safety of the bedroom.
With an ultimatum smothered in
promises of what is only given
by mother to child the leader
snarls and points a missing finger.
Are you sure? Don’t be so
positive without some emptiness
to temper your temporarily
full-bellied mind.
In the city let the city
decay, fall away and be
rich in bird noise and poor
as the first humans
who ever lived here.
On a boat on a lake
just float with no speed.
Throw the engine and the key,
plop, into the water
to set them free.
[chorus]
The natural mind said
to the unnatural mind,
‘If you don’t know
where you came from,
you can’t know
where you’re going.’
[verse]
Go to bed with no blanket
staying warm in sun-kissed sand.
Count the waves in your ear
until all the cities
and boats disappear.
My true love’s a butterfly –
she’s ceaselessly and seasonally
biding her fluttering time
out of reach of any
understanding of mine.
[chorus]
The natural mind said
to the unnatural mind,
‘If you don’t know
where you came from,
you can’t know
where you’re going.’
