Who was once a child enamored
of the names of flowers
turns booze brutal on the cusp of 40
in the full foul fire
of a life's long frustration
during the pre-sleep hygiene routine;
leaves a sprinkling
of silver-backed shards,
a bloody trail of Rorschach blots
leading toward a king size bachelor's bed
with it's unilateral depression
favoring the reading light side
and the disordered pile of
Neruda, Rumi, Eliot and cummings.
A bloody wondering
between whiskey-rich
exhausted exhalations
what happened?
to the moments
of mellifluous mindfulness,
the coffee-shop calm
unperturbed by over-energetic
jangly, piped-in harpsichord music,
the delightful unconcern
with coventional conceptions
of pyschological security,
the body-calm,
clean and calibrated,
it's exercised genetic template
largely realized,
a cultivated awareness
in each major plexus
beyond mere appeasal
of gurgling, ganglial urges,
all an energy aligned,
a bow undrawn from which
flew arrows ardent, aspiring,
a forward moving force,
a heart-strong instrument
of life and prayerful thanks.
Abed, the unfiltered cigarette
snuffed with a disgusted twist,
a quick cataloguing ensues:
the pitiably predictable paunch,
stained fingertips and teeth,
a humbling and ridiculous array
of sport injuries and scars.
A final deep wheeze
before the sometimes startling
very vertiginous fall into
an oft bizarre dreamstage when
something torqued and tensed
came most wondrous easily undone
by simply repeating
the old lady dry cleaner's
answer to the question
about what that fragrant sprig
in a water glass on the counter
that smelled, to him at least,
of bergamot was-
A spray of freesia,
a spray of freesia,
a spray of freesia...
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