Sweat and Boils
We’re all sweat and boils sweat and scabs scraping with potsherds The whole thing comes down while irony and nonchalance aboun…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZufEfKw6yzc]
In the theater or better yet the circus
the elephants come out then the dancing bear then
cages on wheels with lions in them then maybe some
horses cantering prettily then usually the
clowns as many and as varied as possible doing really
nothing but seeming to be fully committed to
whatever it is they’re doing
Each moment entering with spotlit fanfare and tuba-honk
hoopla the same way as in life herself if we
pay attention like the halos around each gnat in a
suspended sunlit gnat congregation
And in such glorious moments someone
ascends to a throne gets burned alive in the
citywide wildfire in Rome discovers the light-prism or
how to decaffeinate coffee
Events unheralded though prepared for way beforehand by the
Master barker of ceremonial cheer
And very dutifully the one with huge feet flaps forth
the tall skinny one holding a tall skinny mirror topples over
twenty-five in a smoking Volkswagen that goes backwards tumble
out onto the sawdust
Each of our moments on the angelic schedule takes place
precisely at that time not a second earlier or later
Especially the elephant with her sad eyes sitting on a box
or the moth-eaten lion waiting for its chance to
pounce once and for all on Roderigo Velazquez from
Venezuela in his spangley white skin-tight suit and be
done with it forever
4/6/2004 (from Underwater Galaxies)
Categories: Poems