¤ ¤ ¤ PYROTECHNIQUE ¤ ¤ ¤
AFAR AFIELD
These are the sediments
The miner leaves behind, land
stripped to its ore, earth excised
to the thin filament of ring and collar
for shoreline, the essence exorcized
to the sentiments that I have gone afield,
busied myself with panning out the glory,
sifting out the new.
From the brightest prospect, despair,
from the darkest shaft hints
that above surface light sweeps
over your face like stars, like tears
while this long distance embrace
chafes to shine it to a close.
In Bengal lights, in camellia bright
Flares and sheets of flames,
Where wren and stars and
Mexican nights tarry then
Rush down step on dangerous
Step. You are too close to dream,
Too close to roll off into
The Sierra's half night that bakes
Down plain, and distant chime
On distant sky carries you in singsong
Grace, lovingly, gently embraces
You in this blanket of love.
To drift off into an ecstasy as fickle as
The wind in our eyes . . . Tonight
We go naked over tundra,
Soak up the last heat of an act
For sustenance, will ourselves on ethereal
Soles and bodiless terms,
Burrow headlong into the last cool flesh
That tapers into sand.
SECOND COMING
Undressed blocks of stone,
granite quarried from earth,
megaliths cut from decimated hills.
I hear all of Europe crying,
fears of abandonment sweep through
industrial streets; forest, mountain, valleys
fall in reproach.
Later, much later
the lotus blooms, the cycle returns,
poverty leaves port au prince,
the equinox shifts
and Mount Fuji melts.
Much later,
warm beer in China,
Lee Chow predicts Maha's reign,
Maha is premier,
Africa sells deep space.
Life, a brevity on eclipse,
a smear of hangnail awaiting touchdown,
a demon's wheel of ice driven phoenixes'
ash ridden oblates.
And you, its green man,
a Sky Hero on budding return,
the Ka of a Mars paraded
in turban and boots.
Later,
Manhattan falls to dreamtime
the Ayers stand watch between frictionless track,
between Shanghai and Sydney the # 7
to Sumer arrives and
whisks you away in your time machine,
ferries you off for a count, a flash,
a fleeting second,
coming.
