Basking In The Silence Of The Cooling Day
Basking in the silence of the cooling day,
sunset in the blood of a snake on a rock,
coiled into its own thermal like the hawk
in the twilight eye of a peacock past its prime,
I go out of my way, by the railroad tracks,
where the adolescents lay their lives on the line,
to accord it the dignity we all hope for in time.
The acrobatic swallows have finished
their aerial attack on the cults of the gnats
and now the nightshift relinquishes the sky
to the dog fighting gypsy moths
and the stealthy dive-bombing bats.
Every evening, the same, their finest hour,
shooting each other down in flames,
and the stars and heritage lamp posts looking on
as if they couldn't be any less concerned.
Crackheads in khaki shorts pass me,
caps askew, and smile nervously at my earring,
though they're baffled by the cowboy boots,
but it's got nothing to do with me
whether they can read the memes right or not.
I just want to mesmerize the ocean
of lunar commotion in my brain
by the rhythm of walking as if my body
held sway over the tides for awhile.
Rage, sorrow, love, my judicious attention
to being fastidiously kind especially
if I suspect I don't really like the person,
just to keep the record clean with myself
and outwit my pettiness just because I can.
Goes with being a poet trying to live generously
among thieves who've never heard
of magnanimous humans weakening themselves
like the chiefs of the Potlatch as a sign
of power leap frogging itself to the top of the totem
by giving it all away with an expansive hand.
Not really sure I understand it myself,
but I live a life of isolation in between
trying to make things mean way more
than they deserve to or not just to hear
the scarecrows mocking my absurdity
like straw dogs on the pyres of existentialism.
Voices like scalpels in my head,
chainsaws in my heart, razor blades
nicking my starmud like cuneiform
into a library of Assyrian incisions
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poem by Patrick White
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