Remembrance and experience as one. 2014 publication in The Mystic Nebula. Written 2012. |
I like long walks on the beach, Total enlightenment, Licorice, and whisky I am one with the universe In tossing the old bocce ball Through the long stretch of crab grass Knocked the kingpin off its hinges The horse shoe head landing in the dirt A sign of the times, reducing earth and god And us to Everything Scotch Plains, New Jersey Scotch indeed! Or was it wine That spilled over and into the street Like rain rattling and trailing in residual little Momentary lines through leaf and dirt and Into the gutters gurgling and glistening and Crying out to the long-dead lights, "I am here! I am here now!" The stars, they say, hear even the muffled Screams of water and earth and man and Time, even the mean tabby cat that glides along The carpet in the twilight We played horseshoes and bocce and sometimes chess We watched old family tapes And walked on the beach, and I hated licorice Never had whisky But damn me if it's no different now Between the times and signs and then Sitting in the crab grass, drinking and dying and seeing and Being and living and lying and I Imagine the fine engraving Left by a horse shoe head |