26 January 2009

. . .And in What I Have Failed to Do. . .

The heavens hardly declare the glory of any kind of any being anymore,
Old hat by now and private domain of the respective scrapers
Who yawn at them empty-faced;
This city peers into itself prematurely, its orange eyes
Darting down each street at night, up each waiting smokestack,
Clawing to make a claim on every alley.
--The bottom-line being
This city stares at itself, and reddened clouds hang in the heavens
Enlisted as perhaps the largest mirror.

Henceforth aeroplanes and hurricanes are unrelated beings,
And we instate for both a different throng of bone-throwers;
Mr. Jones serves as engineer in some manner of avionics
Who passes millions of crowded figures in his city's streets within
Whom Dr. Smith stands as some manner of weatherman
Who passes just the same as Mr. Jones.

(As it relates, pray you aren't found pregnant in the Day--)

And given a row of any given light-bulbs, the city quickly becomes
Unreal, otherwise healthy persons piling into the graveyard hence
Row after row beside each prematurely
--All the glory of the world within a smokestack or a light-bulb!

(As it pertains to you, pray, pray you aren't made pregnant in that day--)

Dr. Smith flies away to the tune of peanuts on an aeroplane
Whose issue instates the millionth hole in a passing cloud
Who brooding retreats, limps over the darkening edges of the world
Forging new and swirling alliances in the South Atlantic;
And again God offers up the Milky Way as a certain laugh
Lost behind reddened eyes as though on doorways,
In beings lost in all the strangest kinds of lamentations.


-r