Good morning, folks!
It was another road day yesterday, four hundred miles under the tires, knee-deep in the world, spinning tunes, dancing to James Brown, leaning over to look into weathered faces, talking about rocks, discussing 1950 in music history, changing lanes, cranking tunes, and watching thoughts blow in front of my eyes, silvery threads in the wind, unseen spiders spinning abstractions of varying degrees of usefulness.
I stood in front of the room. “I write pre-apocalyptic poetry on Wednesdays.” We all rolled our eyes together and laughed.
“So what can we do about the world? I mean, really?”
“Communicate” piped up a little old lady.
***
White dashes and yellow lines and green signs springing up in the night: GAINESVILLE. CULPEPPER. RUCKERSVILLE. CHARLOTTESVILLE. AFTON.
Called grandma. Called dad. Called a buddy and talked about the C.S. Lewis essay I had heard earlier, but it was already smudged with mental fingerprints.
Scribbled notes on a pad, snatches of phrases and ideas, thought about culture wars and real wars and how easy it is to become the monster we fight and…
Like I told ‘em, I write pre-apocalyptic poetry on Wednesdays. These spiderwebs must be pressed into pages. I’m not sure why, but I hope they’re helpful.
The Battlefield Sun
The Battlefield Sun
Sinks lurid over the second field of Manassas
In a smoky choking sky
Smirks at me 21,849 times
Once for each neighbor gone
As I speed down a clean highway in stainless modernity from Korea
And asks if I would be the 21,850th
Or would I do something about it
I spilled coffee on the fern this morning
If I had a time machine to the Devonian period
355 million years ago
And watered those with caffeine
Would they have developed a chip on their shoulder too?
If the lady at the post office could send things back
And I mailed a smartphone to Jesus
I still doubt he would have been smug about salvation
Only someone like me would use hashtags like #YoureWelcome and #LookPaTwoHands
The road unwinds under average tires
While I’m stunned at how inordinately pleased I am
With a clever thought.
C.S. Lewis writes essays about God
And I concur in my feeble way
Arguing with my fellow ants
That the battlefield Sun is really vermillion
Instead of Red
But it sets anyway
And I’m left in the dark
Wandering back to the lonely cell of my mind
Wondering if I fight because I should
Or because I relish how it feels to stab at something
With a sword
Or a pen
Or a raised eyebrow
Transferring my sins
To you.
Local Infinity
Have you ever seen
ancient light of a hundred thousand stars
Frozen across eternity while
Cricket frogs sing in the horse pond?
Felt the python arms
As the Whirlpool galaxy dragged you down
To forever?
As soon as I speak, the thread breaks
Schrödinger’s cat is dead
And God becomes powerpoint
Mystery isn’t a seven letter word
But like blind flowers
We ache towards the Sun
Somehow.