POET IN THE RAIN

POET IN THE RAIN

the rain sizzles
poet splitters
a few syllables
dissolves, melts

flows somewhere
as liquids are wont to

meanwhile
(for a billion meanwhiles)
the cosmos carries on
business
      as usual

same old laws
that birthed us, did
us in
   upon which we
came to depend

unless
     things changed, shifted gear,
found a different trajectory
whole new
direction

could
     have fooled us

no one around to document, observe
no one left to tell

SHRUNKEN VERSION

SHRUNKEN VERSION

shrink me
carve pieces off me
cut me
down to size

reduce me
condense me
down
  to single molecule

erase
   all that feels it has to burst
its boundaries, explode, expand
be liberating
be transformational

yes,
    slice the heart out
of all that stuff

kill all that is poet, poetic,
make the poem, the poetry
go suicide

once upon a time I clung
to the fiction
it was
    my purpose and meaning

now
I am far too old
for anything like this
                                 at all
                                 at all

REVERSE GEAR TO THINK

REVERSE GEAR TO THINK

road is tar
and economy

hole and
ideology

Someones everywhere
trying to follow
their roads
to their very end

and everything might be
cul-de-sac ultimately
(straat
    loop dood in a
slightly more germanic taal)

hopefully you have the grace
not to mind my language

even as rubber
and aphsalt
chew
    up each other

pedal to the metal and
concrete to the petal

me stuck in traffic can
safely presume I am
measurably not alone
in not
   loving it

not noticing that the lights
had changed

anxious, Slavoj,
for the lights to change
someone
    sitting with a sitar
at the back
of my head

reverse gear to think
this is a raga that will
colour the clouds
thus
colour
     the
       rain