April Fallon
Gotta go.
Gotta
get that thing.
Gotta
have it.
Got it in my sights—
I
begat it,
but
its got me.
And its gotten worse.
Its
gotten right
out
of hand.
But it's all
I've got.
It's something
I
just got,
and
when I got it,
I had to get them.
Get out of here.
It's
coming
to
get you.
Don't you get it?
It's
not something
you
can get.
You've
gotta
get
ready for it,
and
get
while the getting's
good.
Hickory Dickory's biological dock
got clocked by a blind one-eyed mouse—
the white ruse is up (better red
than dead) . . .
it's
out through the needle's
eye and into the hay with an old flame
burning
the ashes to the dust
forming the letters I send you dressed in
my
children
Do
I dare
Disturb
the universe?
In
a minute there is time
For
decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse
—T.
S. Eliot
for the cogs of expectation oiled with
synchronicity
the darling of fate
the BMW for the millennium
ambrosia with no DTs
the gold seal of uniqueness
a perfect sepia memory
a gossamer titanium guide wire leading to the
horizon
the foreshadowing swell of the orchestra
the visionary's nod and wink
nondepleting erasure
a spontaneous flight of hands into prayer
the age of moth-proof cashmere
the phone number of evolution's tailor
a pen of universal hieroglyphs
nonfat manna
the genesis big block engine
an inclusive demarcation
Time caters to the exoskeleton.
Its march through progress
calibrates endurance, feeds
the millennial fodder.
Older water, older ice
than thought can thaw
can grab at getting a gene
pool's worth of wool
pulled over mammal eyes:
back taxes unpaid ten thousand years
slow polar encroachment soon collects.
It is the story nobody
wants to hear: white
English teacher has conflict
with angry student, black.
Composition class.
Do I make him Bigger,
by my claim? Have I hooded
my conscience to conceive
my right to know it is not
a wrong to grade
the math of grammar? Standards
are relative, of course,
and who makes the standard makes the grade.
The Czar of Language cuts the class
line, appoints the meaning to the statement.
Except that statements can lie, and even good
ideas can too widely be applied.
Even I cannot claim I know
my mind to the powers that be.
That I could call my calling
a true move to dismantle
the very thing he hates is
out of the question.
No metaphor that would
suggest oppression can come
from the lips of one like me:
the enslavement of our tongues
to whip-fearing platitudes
about possibility, the
abolishment of literacy
in the language of true
individual equality.
When will it be about
communication? When
will it be about you?
When will it be about me?
The stagecoach listed toward the afternoon sun,
riddled with tomahawk slashes— the Savages
of Time had buried one last hatchet
in poor Youth's chest after ransacking
her stores and deflowering her innocence.
"Hit's a damn shame," Golden Years
remarked,
"to go out like that, all sudden-like
and not seein' 'em comin'." The Matron alone
weathered the blows, and packed the tatters
of Youth's fine lace garments
into the folds of her faded frock. "And just
when she was takin' to pioneerin', too."
Time is telling its tale
to Infinity, but the story
makes no sense—
the
nausea
of regret, the giddiness of penance,
the life that is lust—
the
teeth of plot catch no grip
with this audience, and learning
and change and wisdom and triumph
mark no achievement.
The
language
of the story is strange, yet its melody
and cadence are irresistible.
there is a burning need
a lingering line
to the extinguishing horizon
the throaty “o” of the wash
of dawn slopes away in tone
seeds of a silhouette scatter
into form—
the dusky ephemera,
passion, steams off the grass
of first light to settle and feed
on the bright flaming air.
there is none
where no space is
and no place else
nothing to fill
no room for empty
skin too thick
for what is not to be
covered no needle
thin enough
to pierce that without
a surface
The hand is dull yellow, the knuckles
ripple and crease like elephant knees
as she shades the instamatic
from the Egyptian sun
soldering its memory through
fleeting veins and bones
can you capture all that you see?
The glare is blinding the lens.
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Last updated: May 1, 2001.