Haiku, 2/3/26

A walk in deep snow —

Think of nothing but troubles —

Rabbit tracks just stop

LIGHT

A beam of light cutting the skin of space

travels at the speed of time to the beginning,

the end of things, seeing everything between,

without being seen.

Or a single photon released into a sphere

lined with silver, instantaneously covering

all of space, repeating that cold cycle endlessly,

as if someone might see.

It is a discrete miracle, like a man’s soul,

a point on a continuum proliferating one day

to saturate the universe with something better

than gas, heat, matter. 

It is moonlight, the boxes sketched on the floor

at two thirty three in the morning, a lighter 

shade of light. Watch it turn the earth.

It is promiscuous,

infecting its neighbors, or looking to.

It stretches across the sky like an eyelid

and proliferates color like a drug dream.

It splits the prism

into living spectra, dulls the magnifying glass,

blanches the dead leaf, burns the cloud white; 

it is nothing at all—until it strikes something.

Holy Blood

Here is Purgatory too: vines and flowers
Extend from a woman's neck, but her legs wander
Away beneath a shower of black holy blood.
A chemo spirit struts, though she's lost her powers
To console or restore the faith others squander,
Lost all but her rage to escape the coming flood.
Little live hands reach through the clouds yearning to touch
What they can't comprehend, like the Klein-bottle-brained
Devil with the tied shoestring eyes, who knows too much.
He is no god, this clown, though he has often reigned.

DONkey Wrong

The old Donkey, at his prayers,

Ignores his betters, those brayers.

His missal is the alphabet,

Which he hasn’t quite mastered yet.

His teachers wield a paddle of wood

That stings him like gold donkey flies

When he don’t learn his lessons good,

Like mistaking his “Green” for “Ice.”

“Shouldn’t the pupil know more?”

We wonder, “perhaps he’s an Ass?”

His brothers honk a mocking snore

And let a mephitic cloud pass.

The pupil thinks, They will be damned,

But first I need my cranium crammed.

The Truth Well

Both the Truth and the liars are hidden

And will not come forth to speak unbidden

By necessity’s will or convenience,

Unless called for by fakery of sense.

At the bottom of a stinking dry well —

Half way, the easy half, from here to Hell —

Where nakedness — dear Truth — shivers and sighs —

Will Emptiness stitch golden clothes of lies.

He emerges to strut in his glory.

Every sentence he spouts is a story.

The Truth, her bruised body cleansed at least,

Climbs out to the reception of a beast.

They beat and rape her, drag her by her hair,

Throw her back into the well, her dark lair.

The Murderer

 The job is done, the murder weapon stashed;

A beautiful young woman bashed and slashed.

The killer and his partners listen intently,

Moved to inaction by a simple song

A woman sings with soft intensity,

As if her passion could efface a wrong

Perpetrated with mountainous cruelty.

Will speechless bystanders be sufficient

To subdue the heartless secret agent?

The song is over, yet they hesitate.

Three observers, representing the State,

All alike, unblinkingly accuse us

Of the action's unconscionable causes.

There is much more for us to do than wait.

The Reversal of There

I rarely walk beyond that tree

That is home to birds —

And air — too close

To the undermined

Riverbank.

I’ve tried holding

The tree — hands uncertain—

Taking a step —only one —

A test of courage —

A test of foolishness.

Even at flood height 

The water invites —

And seems — at times —

To flow in reverse — back

Up between its banks —

I follow from here.