Three Poems

Cosmic Extravaganza

Perpetual emotion in the self-esteem engine

confounds the tranquility assigned to outer space,

and down the cosmic chasm of the galaxy

that old milk-run star-studded Watling Street

there is nothing there today that is not already gone,

destroyed in the first dawn of primeval bangs.

So what is a universe-weary skygazer to do?

Every feeling already felt, every passion perished,

the welkin sucks up the juices of our dreams,

and transports our protoplasm into parallel planospheres.

“Therefore, be it resolved, in the super-nova assembly,

that the circle of fixed planets and the Primum Mobile

will henceforth be reversed, and the teleuric energies,

especially of the sublunary type, control themselves.

For the good of the globe, all governance now ceases.

There shall be no zodiac analogies,

and everyone tightens their asteroid belt.

In short, infinity and eternity are over

and we shall cruise at peace and in harmony.

The end—

                 Oh, one more thing, before you leave, Colombo:

The Creator of All Things out of Nothing, declares

a holiday of nihilism, and wishes you all Godspeed.”

A Day Passes

The latest weather was completely wild and erratic

and six times the atmosphere exploded.

At dawn sharp rays of light split the dark,

then suddenly pulsing waves of heat were down-loaded

on the clouds and abruptly squashed the morning’s arc.

At noon it thundered and the sea squealed and pricked

deep gashes in the dunes.  Then from that torrent ice

crept forward in silent tentacles.  Bark

slipped down and steamy sap appeared, goaded

on by fiery winds.  Then sodden flaps

of evening crested the horizon, and twice

the swooshing of gray clouds like taps

of creatures through the sun’s decline.  The price

of closure, evenness of darkened air,

and out of shadowed pleasure, deep despair.

 

In Reply to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, on Flavia’s Loss

She sets aside her elegance, the glass

reverses, and contemplates the future,

reclining like a Venus on the grass

with little putti in attendance.  “Churl,”

she whispered to the shadow of a god,

“you ravage me too rashly.  Mother Nature

could not be your parent.”  With a rod

she would have beaten him.  She wept instead.

Her heart was broke again, and every suture

she unwound was heaven-sent.  But was

she innocent?  There is no future.

The meadows, forests, hills abuzz

with news, that she had lost her charms;

she thus withdrew into her mentor’s arms.