ONE HANGING CHAD FOR DUMMIES

.

“The course of every intellectual, if he pursues his journey

long and unflinchingly enough, ends in  the obvious,

from which the non-intellectuals have never stirred.”

-Aldous Huxley, writer

N O I S E

“May  our  miracles

…Not be cruel.”

I tipped my head up,

Away from my novel.

So uncharacteristic

From some televangelistic

Noise at the end of Pop’s assisted-living room.

The old & Southern bible guy

Was odd  about numbers, too.

Not magic mathematics about chapters & verse,

But worse,  what words add up to,

& seven is this

& five is that.

His numbers were different from mine.

Maybe,  I was getting it wrong.

The old & Southern crowd was all nodding.

It takes a stadium.

Maybe  ‘m

Imaginin’,

Tho’ mostly sure  that’s it.

Catch & Notice

Moments ago my big ole moon goes

right gauze-skirting inside a night cloud

Once I see this,  honestly,

It’s a black & white flicker

It’s a late, late, late show. It’s “The Letter”

“I walked With A Zombie”, “The Third Man”,”Cat People”.

Something is going on

Like under a magicians hankerchief

Something is gonna happen

We go darker into shadow

&  It’s Eminent  &  Soon

If we should  just  catch & notice

god’s shiny icon in a guaze skirt

loft

It might seem

All this wretched week

I’m nights dreaming,

‘Till their drench ed sheets

Drape their flushed & fleshy souls

In the same town

Wet, & yet

Won’t drown

In deep waters

Just out the door, around.

.

They’ll soon drift,

‘Till noon, a different drift.

At long last They’re lift ed

A strong  love’s loft,

Soft, &

Gifted.

UNDER ONE SMALL STAR- Wislawa Szymborska

Under One Small Star

by Wislawa Szymborska (translated from Polish by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczakby) Nobel Prize for Literature 1996

died a few days ago/ R.I.P.

UNDER  ONE SMALL STAR

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My apologies to chance for calling it necessity.

My apologies to necessity if I’m mistaken, after all.

Please, don’t be angry, happiness, that I take you as my due.

May my dead be patient with the way my memories fade.

My apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second.

My apologies to past loves for thinking that the latest is the first.

Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home.

Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger.

I apologize for my record of minuets to those who cry from the depths.

I apologize to those who wait in railway stations for being asleep today at five a.m.

Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing from time to time.

Pardon me, deserts, that I don’t rush to you bearing a spoonful of water.

And you, falcon, unchanging year after year, always in the same cage,

your gaze always fixed on the same point in space,

forgive me, even if it turns out you were stuffed.

My apologies to the felled tree for the table’s four legs.

My apologies to great questions for small answers.

Truth, please don’t pay me much attention.

Dignity, please be magnanimous.

Bear with me, O mystery of existence, as I pluck the occasional thread from your train.

Soul, don’t take offense that I’ve only got you now and then.

My apologies to everything that I can’t be everywhere at once.

My apologies to everyone that I can’t be each woman and each man.

I know I won’t be justified as long as I live,

since I myself stand in my own way.

Don’t bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words,

then labor heavily so that they may seem light.