Fallen from the time line
Assailed by birds of various
colors, time slips out of my
grasp. I try to join the birds,
but whatever color I had has
faded & I am seen as an inter-
loper. I cry out to them but
they ignore me, do not recog-
nize my language. They turn
on me. My eyes go first, then
my tongue. I no longer know
what day it is, cannot call out
or hold time back. Somewhere
in the inner ear, I hear time
rushing rapidly away from me.
contretemps
Shooting the brisé, but then
it all went to shit. Jumped
off one foot, beat the legs to-
gether; & then the room was
filled with Shakespeare folios,
each clamoring for some time
on stage. Comes a plié, & all
the wannabees crawl back
between the legs & those knees
aligned with toes & vanish
from the stage. Save one, who
looks for an audience that isn't
there so orates towards the dark
at the back of the room: "My
liege, I did deny no prisoners."
A line from Ludwig Wittgenstein
Dante, lost in a dark place, Hell &
its circles. Rescued from there by
Virgil. Later guided through Para-
dise by his muse Beatrice. The tree
Petrarch in Hell because his muse
was unattainable, already married.
Laura. She died before him. Now
grief replaces despair. no longer
Eurydice, wife of Orpheus, bitten
by a snake, his music escorting her
back from Hell, until he turned to
look at her. Finis. bending, breaks.
stargazing
I am sitting on
the back deck
watching the total
eclipse of the moon
& am reminded of
how Diogenes is
supposed to have
reprimanded Alex-
ander the Great for
standing between
him & the sun, which
then, in the manner
of planetary motion,
makes me think that
if Diogenes had been
persuaded to give up
his barrel & take up
a post as Comptroller
of Celestial Bodies, he
might have ordered
the Earth not to come
between the moon &
the sun, & occlusion
would never occur.