Reprise à trois

Reprise

I have learned a lot
in the past half decade.

I have learned to make
a good cup of coffee to begin the day.

I am often out of cream.

Sometimes I have planned ahead
and have bought evaporated milk,
the use of which I learned from you,
for just such emergencies.

I have not learned to sew.

Just so you know.





Outer Child

For every child in you
there is a bright and shiny Heraclitus
coppery with sunrise
like a new penny.

Except when it rains.

Then it is anything German or British,
like the charge of a lancer in fog.







Interview

If it is gentle and distant
it may do.

If it is a business meeting
or a presentation I will have to pass.

Unless the audio-visuals are good.

If it is a debate or an argument,
it’s wasting all our time,
knock on wood.

If it is a walk down memory lane
it is always too early.

If it is exploratory
it is never too late.

If it is a prayer breakfast
I’ll be there as an observer.

If it is a date on the calendar
it will have to be the full moon.

If it is check boxes with multiple choice
it may as well be noise.

If it is a secret rendez-vous
with destiny with no one knowing
whether we are coming or going
who could say no? I’ll bring
my valise.

[copyright EAC 2010]

Pronaos: How The Temple Should Face

Do snakes shed universes
when they shed their skin
and then grow new ones
in the space between?

Does a spinning top
remember where it has been
and try to right itself
when pushed from its beginning way?

How many innings are there
in a baseball game no one wins?

Are all containers the same?
Is every continent a moving picture
drifting toward the southern pole?

Is there any need for Eden?
Does the part need the whole?

Doesn’t every fable
begin in the middle
to wend its way day by day
little by little toward many ends?

[copyright EAC 2010]

You Are Here

Since it may not be important
enough to bother you
about my resume,
and since a page cannot enlist
or sell or repeat or parrot
or ring a bell over a pot
like the Salvation Army
at Christmas

all one asks is that you find yourself
in this little rhyme
and that you not get lost
for any long or costly time
but learn your way out again, slaying
any Minotaur you may meet along the way
and not forgetting to hoist white sails
on the day of your return.

[copyright EAC 09]

Redacted

This sentence is about war.

This sentence is about grammar.

This sentence is about the grammar of war and the grammar of this sentence.

This sentence is about surplus repression.

This sentence is about capitalism and imperialist aggression.

This sentence is about dream catchers and self-hatred.

This sentence is propaganda.

This sentence is anti-propaganda.

This sentence is your sentence.

This sentence is jingo.

This sentence is bingo.

This sentence is redacted.

[copyright EAC 2009]

The Fly (Adieu)

I killed a fly today with some regret.
It lies among the ashes yet,
a delicate wreckage,
as if crashed upon an alien planet.

[copyright EAC 09]

Sin Base Cuatro (The Fourth Wall)

To the Raft

To the raft in sunlight
in one piece blue green knit
shimmering Raphael
flaunting breasts and hips
overflowing with rose aureole
bathing you were always the better swimmer.





La mujer de mi hermano

We ran away from home
to Mexico not once
but twice.

In the taxi, mi hermano of the opposing gender
along the wide avenue to the Plaza:
“It looks just like Rome.”

“Habla usted español?”
“Poquito”, I say.
“Bueno”, says the cabbie tenderly, “that is good.”

A bottle of rum
gets us over the mountains on a bus.

We become the race.

It was December.

You were a virgin then, my brother,
Do you remember?





Buddha On Big Bureau

In the high heat of June
by the afternoon’s lazy edge
sits on still water Buddha
in leggy spotted green.

Z.

To gusts of gnats
flitting lazily in the sunlight
her merciful tongue.

Slurp.

Later in the moist night air
over warm earth
the song of wanton bedfellows
chorusing sex and rebirth.

Brekekekex koax koax….





Winter Park

So seldom postcarded
in the snow
just the two
not a word
side by side
motor running
heater on
burning rubber
out front in the Ford.

[copyright EAC 09]

World Radiation Messenger Service: Warning

To Whom It May Concern:

Greetings!

Whoever you are reading this, especially if you are human (see illustration) and direct descendants, we screwed up royally ten thousand years ago and where you are now standing while reading this message is one of our radioactive waste dump sites.

It's a long story, so let's just cut to the chase.

Do you folks understand "Geiger Counter"?

If not, have you noticed that people who hang out in this area have high rates of cancer, still births, and deformed births?

Okay, if you are one of these mutants you are not supposed to look like that. Two eyes, two arms, two legs, one head, and so forth--that's the ticket. Got it?

Look, we are really sorry but nobody's perfect.

Please pardon any inconvenience this may have caused.

All the best and have a nice day.

WRMS

[text and graphics copyright EAC 09]