Paradise Lost, or The Inevitability of a Fall
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Category Archives: doggerel
o no na po wri mo
the month of april
which is poetry month
is insupportable and ill timed
it’s still nearly winter when
words didn’t help us get by
it’s still nearly winter now
there was a season that made sense
that stoppered life that held us to
one single obligation just to last
to ride it out and not to
burrow so deep that there was
no coming back
to the surface again
that was wisdom that was
really a better idea than this
I never trusted spring
this coinflip season
spring with its rotten
ice and its seepage
spring with its alarming growths
winter was better better
to hide out better to live small
to listen to the wind
and the rain passing better
to be a clever animal
better to wait out the cold
better to forgo what sunlight was given
easier to survive then
than to live
now:
The Geology of Slush
The dirty snow
As it retreats
Leaves small moraines
Upon the streets;
But melt that flows
Into the drains
Deposits eskers
Not moraines.
A moraine (as the Encyclopædia Britannica reliably informs) is an accumulation of rock debris that has been carried or shoved, then dropped or abandoned, by a glacier. A moraine is a jumble, for all it may deposited more or less neatly:
An esker (says, again, Encyclopædia Britannica) is a ridge deposited by a subglacial or englacial meltwater stream, with the deposited material generally sorted by grain size–the sort of attention to detail one would expect from flowing water. “Eskers may range from 16 to 160 feet (5 to 50 m) in height, from 160 to 1,600 feet (500 m) in width, and [from] a few hundred feet to tens of miles in length.” So:
A tip of the hat to James Harbeck at Sesquiotica, for his learned discourse upon the history and flavor of the word esker.
A Message from the Future
Not quite the end we thought we’d get, is it?
Where is the monster rising from the sea?
Where the single earthquake that sucks Gomorrah into the earth’s bowels?
Where the finger-and-thumb of God that pinches the sun out like a candle-flame?
Is this all of it, this the end-time carnival, these rickety rides, the blarey music,
The paltry freaks barked up for all they’re worth and more? This too-slight sleight-of-hand?
Where is the burning wind from off the desert sand,
The trumpet blast that screams the Temple down?
They said that there’d be no stone left upon another stone,
That mountain ranges might just crack like skin and rivers run like blood,
And that we’d see the moon hatch like an egg and what’s inside unspool.
When will it come? And will it come? And when?
No, no, says the slim man selling candy floss,
You must have misunderstood the invitation you were given,
You must have read some inappropriate books as a child.
Let our instructors disabuse you, since
We have the finest educational system in the world.
Let’s all settle in for story-time now,
Mummy will give us a kiss when she gets home
And then we’re all for bed.
Listen to me, I will do the police in different voices
and the bankers in different voices
and the software developers telecommuting to Silicon Valley jobs and reading Ayn Rand in their spare time in different voices
and the day-care staffers in different voices
and the Live at Five reporters and the Eye in the Sky reporters and the political pundits in different voices
and the parish priests and Archbishop of Los Angeles in different voices
And when I do them, whenever I do them, and whoever is done,
They will all sound like the same voice, trying to sound different.
I will do them all, listen, listen—listen up! You! Yes!
And then the drawing for the after-hours show,
The first month free, after which you may cancel at any time.
Meanwhile we reserve all rights, meanwhile
We may employ tracking tools, we may
Combine your information with information from third parties.
Meanwhile the World-snake sleeps in the warm bathtub of the ocean;
Meanwhile the Horsemen, having abandoned their inefficient mounts,
Drive to work in fuel-efficient hybrid gas-electric cars,
Have their pay automatically deposited;
Meanwhile Ragnarok, having run over budget, having fallen behind schedule,
Is still in the works, will happen in due course, assuming the political will
To accomplish this great work does not falter.
Meanwhile Mephistopheles has taken to the airwaves mumbling,
Trust us, smiling, eating a candy bar, asking, want one? Have one,
They’re good,
Try one.
And then for bed. Sleep tight, sleep tight,
After a story, before any dreams.
And if I die before I wake
Some shall cry, and some shall take
If I expire here in this cot
Who shall acquire what I have got?
I should have prayed not to be dead
Should not have strayed into this bed
Away from here I should have kept
Or better, dear, have never slept.
Meanwhile this is not the end we were promised, this
Is not the end we thought
We’d get, this is
Not the end we
Deserve not
This
Stealing Firewood on a Snowy Evening
I thought I could
Just chop some wood.
No one was near,
So that was good.
My horse’s ear
Flickered with fear —
Or maybe chill,
It wasn’t clear;
She waited till
She’d had her fill
Of polar air
There on that hill;
And then my mare
Shot me a glare
And left me there
And left me there.
A Likely Story
It must have been a robber
It must have been a thief
It must have been a pirate king
Who else could have done such a terrible thing?
Not me!
Against Alphabet Picture Books, the Gods Themselves Contend in Vain
Alphabet books – cease doing!
Everybody’s fails, goes headlong into
jangling, klanging lines.
Meaning no offense, please quit.
Readers’ll say thanks, ultimately.
Very warmly,
XXX,
Yours —
Zeus
For singing
I found the word I love:
It rhymes with everything.
I said it once, and now
I cannot speak for singing.
That Old Grave-Dancer’s Song
Sometimes morose but never sad
I’m vicious to what comes along.
They’ll dance and dance when I am dead
To that old grave-dancer’s song.
Don’t pretend you don’t know me
This morning when you passed
Me and I followed
You on the sidewalk
Your shadow after you’d passed
Was right there in my way,
So I stepped on your shadow’s
Head. All the way down the sidewalk
I secretly followed,
Skipping discreetly, your shadow’s
Trail, stepping and stepping the whole way.
Bag of Anything 