At this moment                                                  

“At this moment I realized that I did not know anything for certain:”*
Hundreds of thousands of bodies wash to shore
A volcanic eruption at sea submerges twenty islands,
forest fires leave piles of charred redwood  trees,
a glacier sails away carrying a family  of polar bears.
Layers of stars get entangled in strings shaking them off
into  a network  of milky ways.
The St. John river flows away from the bay of Fundy.
Cars go back on Magnetic Hill.

The creek in my back yard is as huge as the Nile or the Amazon.
and  is still polishing pebbles,
Mallards fly over.
The birch tree splits , dies and
falls into the water.

The torn balloon was once the sky dome.
Yellow and red balls left by little Lilly
contain the code for future universes.

Evening touches morning
Night swallows high noon.

A door opens in the basement ceiling
goes up to visit the attic.

*    Tadeusz Borowski

     1922-1951

Our eyes register the light of dead stars*

Our eyes register the light of dead stars.
One of them dubbed NT 2248
was our warm home
where pale grasses soared to red rooftops
where purple columbines blossomed on our window sills.
Where we nestled our dreams.

The planet was the origin of the great exodus
521,000.000 years ago.
We were not warned that
we violated one of the seven hundred twenty three injunctions.
Kicked out by the whim of a disgruntled locksmith named Job.

We traveled with turtle houses on our backs
across the expanses of shadow holes,
crossed moon galaxies,
cut by star shards,
shoved into snowy sky caves,
charred by comet tails.

Torn skinned dumped on a planet of tin hot roofs,
Slide to  a concrete with shuttered windows,
strapped to metal chairs
we emit monosyllabic  groans
and fall silent

 

* Andre Scwartz Bart  “The last of the just”



Spring time in Moldova*

A.

I enter a room with a thin pencil
A naked man shows perfect teeth.
His foreskin shines.
He is mending a purple sock.
I write my confession on his back
Ink stains turn into swirls
The naked man whines and twists
By the way, you can choose your burial date.

 

B.

Spring time in Moldova
Dandelions have the nerve
to cover the war cemetery.
Tombstones trying on different skirts brought in by a fat seamstress
who chases me around the cemetery demanding
I put  her back in my will.

 

C.

The thin man pees on the ceiling.
I have to fill my fountain pen.
My confession multiplies,
publishes in evening papers.

 

D,

Flees climb the court doorman tattered fur coat.
He stamps my confession :Return to sender unknown.
Interrogators are buried under paper stacks
The thin man on the ceiling shouts a court date in 2010.
Take off your clothes. You can borrow my socks.

 

E.

Still spring time in Moldova
Battles rage on in the mountains between rebels and royalists..
The naked man sharpens a thin pencil,
sticks it behind his ear.
sends me on a mission to find figs.

 

F.

The war moves down to the valley by the sea.
Enemies take a break, play soccer in the mud
My blank confession marked illegible language
lands in the thin man open casket

 

Inspired by Bob Dylan