COLLECTION: THE ELEMENTS
IN YOUR ELEMENT
these scars
on my arm
are where
my skin burned
when you
touched me
lifted me
up out of
the ocean
and we
walked
for that moment
hand-in-hand
this is the water
I can still taste
you
bade me drink
until
flowing through my body
water and I
were
as one
sometimes I sense it
is there
a drop that
will never leave
has remained
it’s molecular structure bonded
in a place of perfect light
and this
the air
vehicle for the word
across which
your voice carries
through which, all
being well
I am meant to ascend
but for now
where I juggle things
this poem
this breath
every
aspect of myself
all that
must be weighed, judged
called to
balance
come to rest
and lastly, by no means finally
this earth that enfolds
ground from which the
child in me outgrew
where my
feet feel time’s sand, fertile loam,
kick up
some dust
(and who
knows what
gold
hidden
in such dust?)
this the
floor to
who knows
what ceiling
this the dark door
where you yourself were
made human, died
and were entombed
LAMP
the naked lightbulb
your Sun
the cracks in the ceiling
your constellations
and you wonder
if there was
some singularity
in your
life experience
or what you see
above you
has always existed
since the
beginning
of time
except, for you,
there was no
beginning of time
****
S is for serpent
in the Bible, but
S is for
Sartre in
your philosophical
dictionary
and I suppose Socrates,
Spinoza and Schopenhauer too
the books
somewhere in the house
or perhaps not
perhaps there is no house
just a
naked lightbulb
floating in space
as self-explanatory
in its own theology
as anything written
by beloved
Catholic scribe
or Saint
****
sunrise
over a flat-space
of semi-desert
I suppose the technical name
for this is depression
somehow the Earth sank
until it realized it was behaving
like water
another element entirely
one that is
determined, predestined
to settle at its level
no
element more
in thrall
to the force of
gravity
in this space of Sun and dust and rock
and dry bone
no element more
conspicuous by its absence
the spirit of its essence
less around
****
lightbulb
can be switched
or deployed to allow
a play of shadows
in the darkness alone
are we free to dream
let me do
with bit of brain
I’ve got left
a quick correlation
between philosopher of
freedom and
philosopher of darkness
see who
walks out into the spotlight
stands at the fore
****
under the spotlight
one is pressurized into
soliloquy
S in
the dictionary of
literary terms raising
its elapid head
feels funny talking to God
funnier talking to
oneself before
invisible audience
signing off in speech
rhetorical, speech poetic
as the fates
move in from the wings
setting in motion
that tragic action
the bleak existential triumph of
scant human principle over
implacable, singular, all-
focused cosmic force
burning with an all-
consuming Olympianness
with force
far in excess of
a billion stars let
alone
forty, sixty, a hundred
watt lamps
ANGELS
I was expecting
angels of
another element
huge angel of Earth, Water
or Air
nice angels
too nice angels
the angels
that came
were sent and
came
started out life as
pieces of Martian rock
passed through the Sun
burned their way
through the
atmosphere
landed on my hand
would have burnt a hole through it
if they did not
at that moment
announce themselves
my two
little angels of fire
thrusting their tiny arms
through my chest, finding my heart
which burns now
like all the burning stuff of the Universe
Universe suddenly
of passion
and desire
CUSP
fire
water
I am
creature
at the cusp
of those
two elements
cardinal, mutable,
I change, I embody
I fluctuate and
yet I
am the pole
I am the extreme
fire
water
how do I live
this paradox
resolve
this conundrum
the roll of the waves
in the ocean my rhythm
fire of the Sun
running in
my blood
OLD SCHOOL
“‘Tis not too late
to seek a newer world”
Heraclitus
and now we
know
what the
truth
looks like
we started to
lose sight of it
lost
sight
of it completely
no, truth is
old school, truth
is elemental
is earth, shaking seismically
beneath up, erupting with
terrible toxic power
is air
whipped up into storms
of irresistible power, were
once
beyond imagination
are the waters rising, swamping
flooding, drowning
tsunami waves to
eclipse the
highest tower
but it is you
fire
who speak the truth most
plainly, most openly
you whose physics of raw
angry energy
cannot be denied
PROVIDENCE
there are things a poem
doesn’t need
can do
without
and things a poem
needs to be free of
and
somewhat in
this spirit I decided
to leave my
poem
incomplete
let it be free
commit the page to the
element of air, see what
the wind might do: whether
category five storm of
gentle breeze (I believe
zephyr is the
dictionary-designated
euphonious term)
dulcet,
mellifluous
not
much of that
going around
sorry guv’nor don’t get much
call for silver-
tongued in the streets
round here
but with grace it rose, and rising soared
swept on a path I could scarcely predict
the force of chaos will always
smudge the map, distort the plan
to make
mischief or
be provident
IN SPADES
the world got hotter
and the
happy clappy
industrialists said
“don’t worry
lead to
gold it’ll
all be
alchemy
you’ll
see”
hard to see in
the fossil-fuel fog, acid
cloud cover of Venus
but right
they were
when
the entire climate
shifted
the four elements followed:
(like clubs following diamonds following
hearts following spades)
earth became
magma
air
plasma,
fire
got laser focus
and water
(with all that H)
went fusion
reactor
changing the whole nature
of the mythology game
as hearts follow diamonds so
I dug our grave with
this
death spade