Revised. From 1999.
1. Prelude
breakfast: approved fruits and grains and decaf
they sit and eat accompanied by radio’s easy news
of celebrity quirks
blood tragedy trivia
ripples over an abyss
there are the usual long silences
between two who’ve been together a long time
who once believed they had known each other
long before this life and are no longer sure
he paced his den last night
trying to recall the flavor of civilization
she lay awake upstairs
listening to other insomniacs’
fever fear of UFOs
if there were ever children here
they are not apparent now
so they will spend the day
as they spend every day
absorbed in paperbacks and gossip
never quite grasping the answering machine
if they were ever friends
those bonds have become invisible
in all this mist
that attends the slow closing of their world
as it slips to one side
and they begin to seek
Atlantis
2. The Husband’s Library
Come into the
shadow of this red rock…
he read that phrase some years ago
it drives him crazy because he can’t place the source
all he really knows is that as he read them the first time
the words rose out of his center like islands glimpsed from afar
and they are there still
some nights when he is lying in his den
surrounded by fabulous stories
he sees himself on one of those islands
draped in a fine robe
crouched in the cool shade
of an enormous sandstone ledge
he is adored by millions
who flock from the cities to see him
he stares across the crowd
from under the safety of his
natural pulpit
is beloved
and is wise
and is haunted
by fiction
he knows his imagined wisdom
is all his own creation
there are plenty of other myths
that would have him crushed
or buried
or drowned
while the red rock loomed in the background
as metaphor
as symbol
some kind of doom
meted out by the earth
to those who dream of perfection
in small family rooms surrounded by fantasy
red rock looms
and looms
and looms
he drops his habit
becomes naked
in the presence of red rock
in a waste land
he never allows himself
to reconsider
3. The Wife’s Radio
she lies down wide awake
as her clock opens the night with 12:47
it’s a good start she thinks
past midnight but not yet one o’clock
still time to get a good night in
barely AM
unlike
the radio that is always AM
and the man on the radio
who is always suspicious
he says
there are stars
that move
there are whiter
lines outside the yellow lines you can’t cross
there are cigars
over your head
there are scoffers
anywhere you look
anywhere you look
there are fools
there are people up
there
and down here too
but not visible
some are friends
and some are alien gray
blending into elf
tales we grew up with
the clock chimes in at 2:13
now we’re getting serious
now we’re speaking for everyone
who never gets out much
now we are talking olympus
he says
there are people
who are taken by the gods
there are stories
that don’t hold water when you pour it on
there are big heads
that won’t admit opinions
there are men in
the halls of power
there are women
under the sidewalks
there are marriages
that act like Kabuki parody
white faces farce
stereotype almost otherworldly
not ever quite
there
still awake at 3:36
way past dream now
is the rain natural this late, or this early
she thinks someone downstairs is tossing stones against
the windows
does she dare go find out
if facts are facts
he says
there are secrets
that look like commercials for mind loss
there are facts and
then there are facts
there are spotters
holding up the constitution for ridicule in the desert
there are old
stories that make ours seem like sequels
there you go when
you do go
when she falls asleep at last
nothing is stable
except those huge eyes that shine like definitions
paradise has slipped
4. The Journey to Atlantis
I will never kill
you, my love,
they are both thinking
as they resume their spots at their
breakfast table
breakfast: approved fruits and grains and decaf
they sit and eat
accompanied by radio’s easy news
of celebrity quirks
the usual long silences
between two who’ve been together a long time
who once believed they had known each other
long before this life and are no longer sure
when the news stops
being about the news
and nothing can be done
when the anchors talk and talk
of what the anchors want to talk about
and nothing can be said
they will think of Atlantis
stop dreaming of a temporary sacrifice
they will think of Atlantis
in the western ocean
or the eastern sea
Atlantis
where sabbaths came with no clouds overhead
Atlantis
where braver tales were told in the councils of power
Atlantis
where the highways were long and straight
Atlantis
I loved you then
Atlantis
when the egg you were hatching
Atlantis
was the thing that would drown you
Atlantis
which was solely red rock on soul blue sea
Atlantis
which was dark against the sky every holy peak of it
Atlantis
which is still a name of dreams
Atlantis
every people has you
Atlantis
every school refers to you
Atlantis
isn’t it nice to be remembered by
a couple
who lives forever in silence
whose children are grown
whose every memory is infected with longing
for something
that has always been
Atlantis
a place of such perfection
they know it must have been real once
hear them whisper
please say that
just now it’s only covered over
for God’s sake say it isn’t gone
