Tuesday, December 3, 2013

trying to explain


she said she dreamt

of thugs and dogs

that chased me.


in mine i slept inside

a vast human hive

shaped like a pyramid.


i'd rather be chased by

brooms and mops.


the cold could not be explained,

by dead songs or distant sirens

waiting for the mercy or the joke,


the sound of the universe

when nobody's home,


the documents and scraps

of paper smeared

with policies and poems.


the sentimental glow that clings

to the stones of dead empires

and faded snapshots.


-

it’s easier to float a needle

in a glass of water.


but i kept looking.

in the storm-bared roots

of stolen streams,


the trees that lived through

cortez and the pharaohs,

stalingrad and woodstock.


a crumbled fort

returning to sand,

might be shelter for a picnic,


a place to frolic

in the spaces that

escaped attention.


i found an antler in the gravel.

he'd shed it in the willows


besidea shrunken pool

with black tadpoles

wriggling at the edges


and two snakes trying

to eat the same fish.


one had the head,

the other the tail.


neither willing to let go,

and for a moment

it seemed to explain,


everything.

1 comment: