It’s time for a brief holiday from the unscrubbed mirror.
So, I see all this stuff
About life and love
And dying
And how the stars echo
Some frail eternal now
And, yes, it’s hard
And though our hands be held
Entwined but ever separate
That skin that marks the boundary
Also holds the keys
And all that
And all that loss
Was dross
And some plain spun funk
Reminds of deathless agony
So far,
So long
Ago
Okay, I get that,
But just what is my job here, anyway?
Like souls at the sorting gate,
Searching for keys
To waken the ghosts imprisoned within,
They call out to be deciphered.
Can you make it out?
Two names, no longer legible,
Then, “Forever.”
I
En garde, Messieurs!
My rapier is sharper than two half-wits.
I can trim your dualities two ways to Sunday,
Twice a day, et tu, brutality.
Why waste time on brilliant repartee?
A double-headed axe can twicely slice
And cleave like lipstick vine.
Entendre, Messieurs!
Your duelist tendencies bewilder no one.
Give it up. The day is lost.
Don’t think twice.
II
I had a friend who threw words
Like knives.
Thok! Thok! Thok!
And there you were, strapped to the board,
Hoping he wouldn’t lose his nerve
Among the adjectives.
Did no one tell you
Those knives were already there?
It’s only a parlor trick, after all!
Row upon row,
Field upon field,
Rise these stelae.
Long and short,
One upon another,
Lovingly marked
As if to banish forgetfulness.
“Goodbye, fare well
On your long last journey.
We shall never forget you.
But just in case,
Here are your particulars.”
The bland design falls, outward bound.
The swilling beast groans with cheap ecstasy,
Sometimes interior,
Sometimes superior.
What is exterior obliterates me
Until my fragile image asserts its wee voice,
Lost in a chorus
Of wee voices.
I know, I know, I am the only me,
The only conjunction of these points,
But how could you have failed to guide me
Through this hidden path?
Was I supposed to intuit mere chance?
As it is, I’m left to glide along
Waste-bound avenues,
Street grime the color of storm clouds,
Tipping into a middling redemption
Unawares, using old navigation charts,
Useless azimuths, discarded distances,
Captain of a bottomless vessel,
An occidental sailor upon oriental shores.
See there, where no destination lies.
A simple ending, no beyond, no before.
Not even a reason for despairing.
We’d mistaken the moon for a song.
exiles child 