Archive for August, 2008

“For a Year and a Day”

August 24, 2008

Things always end badly -
a firey car crash,
a stuttering cardio monitor,
lethal invective.

Premonition
is uselessly deficient in detail
to ward off
natural unintentional disaster or
to suggest remedy in
unnatural intentional intervention.

No matter,
the trick is to extend the middle,
explore the exposition exponentially.

Take the back roads.
Pull off at every scenic overlook
to hold hands,
take a nap,
eat a sandwich.

This would be a good time
to walk the dog
you liberated from the shelter
for just this purpose.
The one with eczema, halitosis,
and, crucially, a thimble-sized bladder.
You don’t mind,
it delays the destination.

The storm hurls its tantrum
against the jagged coast,
the lighthouse winks out.

But you are beyond the jet stream
somewhere
becalmed,
drifting uncharted waters

in a ramshackle
pea-green boat.

Field Notes Of A Xiphosuran Voyeur

August 24, 2008

Neon moon, a tacky magnet prize
from the star arcade
sticks tight to the thrumming
refrigerator night sky, its slogan:
“Live Fast and Penetrate!”
reiterated in North Truro Bay
swollen at zenith tide.
Below the dune’s crest
a midway throng of bumper cars,
frenzied carapaces, ram and slam
with carnival abandon.
Three males buckled to each female -
appropriate odds in primordial drive
collision – collusion – cohesion.
Shells sneck like shards of pottery
tossed on the midden.
Slight-of-claw hooks glint
on lunar irradiated shoal,
snick like metal keys pounding out
a manifesto of survival.

Antediluvian orgy
of horseshoe crabs reenact
a fossilized tableau
compressed in brittle catacombs of shale
360 million years ago.
In a musky seaweed nest,
a belly dancer’s spangled girdle
shed during the passionenticed by its performance
is studded with a swarm of eggs.
Finally spent,
borborygmus of receding tide
lures the xiphosura back into its bowels.
Several, flipped by taunting waves
stab their stiletto tails
deep in the sand for leverage
accordion their segments
and tip upright to scuttle deeper.

Foam polished door knobs
blink ten compound eyes in smug retreat.