Poetry 1

1

There is no such thing as barrels of oil.

No heavy crude

Drowning the world, no saccharin lighter grades so sweet

They drive mild men wild.

Go to bed my darling, there is no such thing as barrels of oil.

There are only cars made of chrome and polish, flash and speed.

One for every man, woman and child

Who dreams of the open road.

2

There is no such thing as global warming.

Or for that matter old growth forests

Whose canopies could shelter a hundred, a thousand

Statues of Liberty.

There is no such thing as habitat loss or endangered species

The world is good and unchanging, my child.

In our forests and lakes and mountains and deserts

Is life beyond counting and reason.

3

There is no such thing as war

No ancient hatreds or blood at the boiling point.

We're one world, whole and indivisible.

So sleep tight in your own soft bed.

And every morning awake in your own bright room.

There has always been enough for everyone

And you will never be asked to do without.

The green is not the grass

The blue is not the sky

The moisture is not the woman

The flesh is not the bliss

The ink is not the pen

The paper is not the voice

The voice is not the psalm

The psalm is not the path

The path is not the road

The road is not the dream

The dream is not the life

And, not even life, is the life

From the time our flesh first impressed

We began to sink

We sank and we continued

Down through the bed

The floorboards and foundations.

Sank beneath the mud

Sank beneath the buried

Sank beneath the sunk

Sank beneath Atlantis

Sank deeper still

To absolute porcelain.

On this side of the window

A shower of chrysanthemum.

Outside, torrential rain.

From this distance the world appears mute.

But if somewhere someone is singing

It's because someone somewhere is listening.

If this were the last day of my life, would I know it?

And if I did

Would I pretend otherwise?

1

God continues to seek us in the strangest places.

His eyes lit from within

Like pearls in their gray closets.

2

He still calls out in that hoarse whisper of his

From those alleys he prefers

The ones with no way out.

3

Without fail he appears, shimmering in wavelengths

Invisible to the eyes he gave us

And in frequencies unintelligible

To our famous brains.

Never again will I perform death-defying acts

Only to accept as my due a single

Grape.

Never will I swallow another sword

For my supper.

The pen is dry at last

Tra la la la la la.

I want nothing more to do with anything that suggests resembles

Or goes by the name Mr. Panache.

I have reached the end of my metaphors.

Just you watch:

Not even the shimmer of her divine flesh will elicit another superlative from me.

Welcome to my silent new world where monuments are tall as inches and planets round as minutes.