THE DISINGENUOUS
It is a sad day for these gentle people, a caption might read.
Loyal disciples of false modesty and prayer, they gather at the
river drinking their bottled waters and chatting in suitably low
tones to those who will listen, or pretend to, confessing their
passion for artifice.
Indeed, they sigh in unison, how little a title does for us.
And with that they spread their blankets on the grass and open their
baskets.
Assembling their quills and ink-berries, preparing to draft their
manifesto, they agree their collective intellect is a raft fashioned
from Scottish wattles to be launched at daybreak, ever in an
easterly direction.
Of a body they are struck by the fine picture they must make in
their fur hats and handsome robes sewn from natural fabrics by
captive workers, chained three to a table.
It pleases them to no end to know that while this table sits in the
basement of a boutique in Dreux in a sound-proofed room, it is also
quite fictitious.
Oh they know they are looking good on their riverbank, good enough
to eat, a lonely ingénue might say, and so they smile sadly.
¤ ¤ ¤
THE SHIRKERS
For months the telephone has been in great pain.
If I unplug it, will the wrong numbers stop trying to reach me?
They can't know the harm they do.
Reasoning, for a host of reasons, I have forsworn.
But for every possible question
I have studied an answer faithfully and will offer it up.
If the doorbell rings there is never anyone there.
If letters are missing they are always yours.
And yet, there is so much here that needs to be shrinkwrapped.
What is equally true is the ends of these small plastic tubes
need to be shaped over a tiny fire
and fitted carefully into the larger ones.
This is to happen on a daily basis.
Later, each tube will inflate in a stranger's bloodstream,
the good ones nudging obstructions to the side.
Still, some promises were unwise.
All the work this useful room once had to do with
has stopped. The plants go unwatered and thrive.
The pinning machine is quiet in its corner,
its bleak resentment matching the boy's next door
(he has been ordered to watch television and won't).
¤ ¤ ¤
EARLY REPRISALS
The hospital ruins I crawled out of whole
should have told me something, but deaf already by then
I didn't hear. Go back, they may have been saying,
go back, or welcome,
welcome to the fantastic error your life was-
and don't forget to come to dinner later, and bring your tools.
Everything is at the end of its rope
long before the ribbon on the rope factory is cut.
Workers punching in
in the mornings are packed out in boxes at night
before the dark chokes on its first breath.
All over the earth's blazing new deserts
swimmers are losing their lakes mid-stroke.
What a short farewell party our hour on earth is,
the bitterest among us are grumbling.
You and I are no longer among them, never were.
¤ ¤ ¤
WORKING WITH WHAT I HAVE
They put me in a room
with nothing in it
but a tiger and a chair.
I sit down.
