This
is not a Pipe, This is a Curiosity
When
you read these words, you must not speak aloud
The
hidden reality, but don’t choke on the memory
That
cannot be seen, only represented fear.
The
artist calls whatever is seen a scene, a field
Of
rhetorical diversity and contestation, where
Discourse
turns into moral debate, fiction
Versus denial, faith versus affirmation
In
the unspoken word, the incomplete metaphor
When
too much is left unsaid. We do, we hear.
Too
much being said makes for static. Where
People
in distress do not make speeches, syntax
And
synecdoche, burst out into ekphrasis,
While
deadly implications scatter like sparks.
Dreams at the Edge of Thule
When
Keats had fears of death, he wrote a sonnet,
and
filled the lines with his moistened sighs; while Donne
spoke
out against the haughty tyrant, upon it
heaped
such scorn, that it was years before the sun
dared
peep into the heart of Dylan Thomas
to
tell him that the day was come to yield
—but
he would not go gently, as others pass,
his
campo santo a bloody battlefield.
Ulysses
sailed into dreams at the edge of Thule
To
fill with blood a hole, so he could hold converse
With
heroic shades, and like a boy at school, he
Demands
the secret formula in epic verse.
They
mocked his anxious and fatuous naivetĂ©—
“Do
anything to stay alive in the light of the day.”
The Fountain of Youth
Yes,
I hear it, Time’s wingĂ«d chariot,
And
the ferocious dogs snapping at my heels,
And
all the fun-filled days with Ozzie and Harriet
Almost
full; no time for Maggie and Jiggs, their spiels
Are
ausgespielt, as well the Shadow knows;
Lurking
behind the creaking door was Lamont
Never
seen but always there, like flows
Below
the surface, ebbing from the font
Ponce
de Leon sought and never found
In
Florida or Arcady. Like bubbles
Drawing
us back down deeper in the sterile ground,
Beyond
where water rats are rotting, troubles
Point
the way we cannot avoid, the void
Of
all oblivions and consciousness destroyed.
The Extra Limb
It
was neither congenial nor congenital,
These
markings on a grave with tortoise shells,
A
feast event, a ritual of farewell,
And
all seemed fine, until we simply fell
Over
ourselves with this, an extra limb;
Of
all the others in this rock-built burial place,
There
are no missing legs. Did someone climb
And
fall attempting to enter this sacred space
And
leave behind his appendage? How odd,
How
disconcerting! Or was this the shaman’s wand,
Her
symbol of authority, her god
Displaced
from deep in an underworld, below
Where
spirits wander upside down to stand
inverted and walk with us, her paschal limp
In
a holy choreography? But lamp
Or
lump of incongruity, we’ll never know.