Song Love

 
It’s like that song that says
It all: the moment is deep
And the words on top of
The beat below the melody
Sum up all the things failing
To make sense, no matter
How much thinking or
Drinking or struggling we
Do. Play that song forever,
It’s so precious, and then
One day breaks new, the song
Is through, and we can listen
But we know it’s time
To love a different tune.

Leps

 
In their neck of the woods, the tigers fly
To the beach of a puddle to feed on the remains
Of the day, while the king reigns for one
Moment over thousands and thousands of miles.
They run up trees when the sun runs down,
And the green recedes as the moon opens
Its eyes, so the stalkers may see scales and wings.
Long legs, fuzzy eyes and coiled mouths

The North Pole Is Just a Place

While the South Pole lies on a continental land mass, the North Pole is located in the middle of the Arctic Ocean amidst waters that are almost permanently covered with constantly shifting sea ice. This makes it impractical to construct a permanent station at the North Pole (unlike the South Pole). However, the Soviet Union, and later Russia, have constructed a number of manned drifting stations, some of which have passed over or very close to the Pole. — from the “North Pole” entry on Wikipedia.org

Life in the Waiting Room

A jaundiced child picks his nose with a stubby finger in the waiting room of Bleekerton Medical Associates. He is yellow all over except for the edge of his blonde hair which has a green tint to it; and his eyes: they are red at the rims. The mother holds his free, unboogered hand. She is quite possibly the only person present who looks worse than the boy. Her face is sheened with acne; her lips are cracked and peeling. She looks nowhere, her eyes lightless. At the arm of the pastel-blue chair, her fingers contract and expand over the boy’s little digits forming something like a crippled heart. They are waiting to find out the problem like everyone else in that room. The boy builds up the energy to drone the questions humming along with the air-conditioning: Why? When? How?

Image_2009

 
It’s times like these in the sweltering summer
Air, that I wonder if I’m still here, or if I have
Disappeared. I try to ground myself in the small
Things, but all insects and spores and ephemeral lines
Have a habit of getting away even as I walk
After them, toting a camera in which I like
To imprison them. Except that’s mostly a lie,
They’re gone, flying, I’m the one caught
In the picture, noticing for the first time
The short hairs on legs and mandibles and lips,
The short hairs I can never see until I shudder,
The short hairs that leave me feeling like
I was never that close to this caterpillar.

Beacon, On a Mountaintop

Two men are sitting on the grass on top of a mountain. The green canvas between them is a strained space. One looks to the west from under his charcoal hat, the other to the south in his off-white clothes, both intent on something distant.

Behind them, standing tall and timeless, before the blue sky, is a monument, a war memorial. At the top of the grey granite tower sits a glass orb, a beacon, dimmed but ready to be lit. The men do not pay it any attention; they are all familiar and can stand long silences in the same room.

Something besides the green grass has come between these two men. They can only think of what is so gravely betwixt them, only of her. Yes, a woman. Like a matter of life or death.