thankful that inertia lets us pretend
we’re such a “big deal,” speaking in metaphors
because euphemism is too direct, direct because
we’re making a show of hiding something
and
saying what it is that we’re hiding by way of negation.
And WHOOSH! Every time one goes by
I say this, and trace its afterimage
with my finger. I want the world to know
the universe is burning up
around us.
The sky is nothing but FIRE!
We have no time, no time at all.
I suppose from a certain point of view,
in the right context, one could say
with certain reservations, while
allowing for dissent, if you were
into this kind of thing, depending on
how you look at it, if you agree
that certain truths are relative,
not speaking of course
for anyone who can speak
for himself,
that yes,
between the burning stars and collapsing wave functions
there is time for the smaller things, and yes, one of those
things is love but hey! No! This is not a love poem, I
haven’t turned into some kind of romantic (WHOOSH!) or
God forbid a Romantic. Watch: Fuck. Shit, just shit everywhere,
shitstains. Zoo animals having sex. The Surinam Toad. Ke$ha. (WHOOSH!)
Oh man I wish you were here with me now.
I love these things, I do, there’s too much about
them for a person to understand, but they’re
BRIGHT and FAST and INSCRUTABLE
which makes them 3 for 3 in my book.
And just like the present they’re a lot closer
than they appear. Like my poems, they’re
cyclical but decidedly not timeless, and
if this one has already passed its
perihelion so what?
You’re still reading it.
Burning up in your atmosphere.
The small things are not much different from
the big things.
And if love burns you up,
so what?
At least you were BRIGHT and FAST and INSCRUTABLE
and people Googled you every August
as science blogs trawled for hits and
engineers sat on mountains and
students regretted their electric lights and whiskey and
composers reclined alone in someone else’s bed and
the President slept on an island and
the citizenry largely dreamed and
lovers walked into their yards and
WHOOSH!
