early call.
it’s a closed set
with no one but cast and crew
allowed
and no one’s seen the shooting script
until today.
the leads take stab
after stab but he flubs lines
and she loses her mind
trying to cover.
the Director
is patient
and he keeps it all rolling
but at day’s end
he calls the Producer
and says,
"we’ve got a problem here…"
and…
scene.
That our organs are colored
seems ridiculous; after all, inside us
it’s always dark.
Still,
they are bright enough.
There must be
some reason for it,
some adaptive rationale…
perhaps what we know
of the pink bowel,
yellow pancreas,
and red, red heart
is only a dimmer-switch reality,
and when we are in love,
tossed by ecstasy, enraged, roiled
with any passion, they pop
into more garish neon shades?
I like that thought. Even
if it’s not true, it should be.
I shall decide that it is, and glory
in the image I can’t see: that
all the tension and rage I’ve ever felt
have led to a peacock explosion
of light within me.
Nothing against you,
crystal skulls and pyramids,
sweat lodges and vision quests,
Tarot cards and Zodiac; you’ve served
your purposes.
It’s just that your creators are long dead
and your current slavish fans
still assume you mean more
than any other option we’re given
for understanding our place among
the things of this world. As if they couldn’t
find peace and meaning
in the random jumble of socks in a drawer
or the shadows of skyscrapers
knifing across downtown streets
if they tried. Every jammed closet
is a cathedral if you know
how to pray in it. Each time clock
offers a mantra in its solid clunking down upon
a dreary card. It’s not like
the Great Intelligence of the Universe
was absent when those things were created,
after all; the web of prophecy is splendid
precisely because it is all-inclusive,
with the profane and the sacred
being indistinguishable at close range.
When the ancients are called upon
to tell us where we’re heading, they must ask themselves:
Who are these frightened people
who do not understand how to make do
with what’s right under their noses, cobbling together
a peephole into time from whatever is close at hand?
We lifted strange clear rocks from the dirty ground
whenever we found them. We took a deck of cards
we’d used for gambling and sorted them to see
if how they fell could tell us how we might fall.
When the king died, we cut and piled rocks
until they lined up with stars and sighted along them
so we could see where he was headed. And in the dark
low dome of a hut covered in skins,
we poured cold water over the hearth,
drew in the steam, blew it out again
to mingle the Inner with the Outer;
something we did every day, anyway,
every time we cooked or bathed. All we did
to meet our God was add a little attention
to the mundane. Shape a little something
just a little bit more carefully than normal.
All we did to meet God
was look for God.
We trusted that
we wouldn’t have to look far.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Since we’re attending to the mundane: In regards to the 30/30, this makes 52 poems this month. Not all were posted, so you’ll just have to trust me.
Still not a haiku among them.
When I was nine
they dug a hole
in a neighborhood lot
for the foundation
of my family’s new home.
They left the mountain of dirt
next to it and suddenly
I was very popular,
because
my parents told the local kids
I had to be there
if they wanted to play on it.
No one has to tell
a nine year old boy
how to play
“King Of The Mountain.”
The rules are simple:
fight your way up,
send the other kids tumbling down,
and when you get to the top,
scream your royalty
as loud as you can. Then,
defend it.
I was never
very good at the game.
When the dirt was gone,
so were the kids.
At least two of them died
within a few years:
one when he thought he could cross the road
faster than a car could get to him,
one when he thought he was better on water skis
than he actually was.
My folks put a maple tree
in the corner of the lot
where the mountain used to be.
I don’t see my folks much anymore,
but I like that maple tree a lot.
It was too small to climb
when I was a kid. I could climb it now,
I suppose, but I’m too old
for that kind of thing.
But I think about climbing it,
as far up into it as I can,
every time I see it.
If I could I’d sit up there
all by myself for a long time.
I’d be quiet when I got to the top,
though. It would just be silly
to shout anything
with no one around to try
and take me down.
But God help me,
I’d be smiling.
Dark Matter 