The plastic fern.
The portable telephone.
The woman asking for support.
The affordable baby back ribs.
Driving home, I see
a cloud, a thought, a comparison
a spasmodic equation of the cloud
and the dolphin it resembles
engineered by an impetus
to keep seeing
keep reappraising
if such an observation
has any value, any truth
that prospers if appreciated
and where it may, sustains
the wonder that keeps us from dying
like a thought that appears
in an opening cloud.
Who will help you interpret the moment?
Choose. Do not be frightened.
There is nothing more wet
than rain that will fall
when the cloud cannot hold.
Where is your image then
but in a pool of oiled H2O
gathering reflections in pollutions.
Confusion baby confusion.
If you don’t see it
you must have bad vision.
You must need a blood transfusion
in a Thunderbird.
You must wonder
even after your decision
if you can help me find the next dimension
and determine if it counts
more than one note two notes, three
of Dexter Gordon Don’t Explain
wording questions wordlessly
as the cloud changes
and the questions drift
namely Does it matter
to be understood?
or to pretend you have the right view
of understanding
or that Cleopatra sings
You think you know understanding?
or as the cloud gains wings
everyone knows what you’re saying
and that’s why they ignore you
or if anyone cares and hey, No, not really
comes back the answer--
must even such a dismal No
matter to a mind that opens once
or twice upon a time.
For how long should I be understood
before my breath
annoys you and my limitations
suffocate the future?
The clouds will always question
those who care to ask
How am I being? What am I doing?
discovered, rediscovered, left alone
replaced, advanced, bypassed
(dinged up like an El Camino
cruise lights in the sunset amusementlight)
this cloud is not a dolphin any longer!
It is a windblown mess
counting backward from the time it was
a dolphin:
Washington 2021
Anchorage 1964
Wilmington 1898
Gettysburg 1863
Houston 1981
New Orleans 1880
Philadelphia 1783
New York 2001
Clear Lake 1850
Honolulu 1945
Los Angeles 1978
Atlanta 1848
Jerusalem 1831
Boston 1769
San Francisco 1965
Panhandle 1932
St. Augustine 1837
White Sands 1941
Baltimore 1968
Chicago 1964
Jamestown 1609
Anywhere 2018
The dates remind us.
Things are dangerous.
Time has piled that fat on heavy.
The arteries are hard.
I may be the last
who writes about impermanence.
Yet the cloud remains
whatever i want it to be
eventually.
I know it matters. But look
and everywhere this terrible world
terrible suffering
even in the wealthiest of nations
rolling down the apex
does not stop the spirit
from continuing to move
out of generations of cockroaches
and birds of paradise
and into me--
a spirit thirsty for life
for spiritual extension
for the justice we find endangered
as a fat turtle or a dirty wolf
gifted ape or lost auk
killer bacteria, tasty dove
and fat aristocrat
legal-engineering skills intact
so shut up or I'll ruin you.
I say, Sweet Earth
your spirit continues to move us
and when it has left me
I shall lay down with Lucretius
and friends who mean me no slaughter
and I will serve them food and laughter.
I won't sweat evolution.
I won't sweat polonium
morphing out among histrionic days
freighted down by oil bills
and hot hot
hot hot August rain
the blues and beauty
your slash of creation
repairs with longing
and shame for fascinated tears
instinctively submissive
beneath a ziggurat of fear.
A new cloud blooms
over the streets.
It has no shape.
The Earth continues
to move us. The naturalist
can see the evolution.
In the skies across the city's bloodletting--
the real cruel totality wise men
find a way to avoid
and drunks drink to forget.
I see in the clouds
a new thing forming.
I see rain that never fails
to fall as rain
just as we are true to ourselves
and the gasoline.
I take another gulp
of what I know is not clean air
and change regret
for sympathy the honest father feels
in his correspondence
of cloud and lover
of lover and beloved
self and descendant
Gordon and a listener
the moment and its disappearance
the correspondence, intrinsic
beyond language
a fingerprint of time, a cloud
I remember, a memory
so noted.
2019-2022