Apocalypse Now
Do you smell that? Napalm, son.
Nothing else in the world smells like that.
Now when I feel
the world folding
me to stuff me into
a cardboard box
fixed with yellowed tape,
now I can see
I am not one of those
soft-handed little men
enveloped in gray suits
languishing in faceless shadow,
bladder shy pissers
sporting pajamas as they
sleep on periwinkle sheets
dreaming of every day
stifling contralto cries
into pillows reeking of flop sweat,
now I can tell
I am roughhewn oak,
splinters for tender skin,
yet resplendent –
adorned with a king’s
feast over my bulk,
now I can feel
my animal heart grown
too large gnawing
to burst forth
with fangs dripping
blood and saliva
like Polyphemus
burbling wine
and bits of man-flesh,
single eye monomaniacal
in his cave home,
iridescent glare
from the darkness
while the shipmates
rend clothes and hair,
now I know I will
not my quietus in quietude
make but yawp and bark
and drink the green
exploding round,
now I burn to ashes,
sometimes the flame,
sometimes the gasoline,
but always kinetic,
always ready to devour,
orange yellow
red blue tongued,
to eat and be eaten,
voracious and delicious.
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. . . .
It smells like victory.
Overlay
the machine humming quietly
dreaming of storms life
skies open rain down
the face weeping wet
green is forward thinking
dreams summer breathing anew
crack again dropping splashes
grass is dripping joy
the machine humming quietly
dreaming of storms life
skies open rain down
the face weeping wet
green is forward thinking
dreams summer breathing anew
crack again dropping splashes
grass is dripping joy
the green machine is humming forward quietly thinking
dreaming dreams of summer storms breathing life anew
skies crack open again rain dropping down splashes
the grass face is weeping dripping wet joy
View from the Bridge Over Finch Creek
Some move through the deeper pool
without stopping while others
pause to gather strength
for the shallows ahead.
Those that make it over
the gauntlet of stones buried
by water that would not wet
a cuff thrashing their tails
mightily making waves
further churning the cascade
and dousing the protruding faces
of the larger rocks bearing
silent judgment of the struggle.
I join the mute approbation,
a living stone of carbon and water,
as they take turns at the trial.
To my azoic friends and me,
unschooled as we are in nuance,
their successes or failures seem
mere quirks of happenstance,
the Crass Causality of Hardy’s
purblind Doomsters, unmoved
by our calculi of merit.
Some hurl headlong through
the pool attacking the shallows
with vigor and purpose
only to find themselves thwarted,
forward progress inexplicably stopped
and body pitched by the stream
back to the pool to rest
in a pocket out of the current;
others, already heavily mottled
and panting from exertion,
stare ahead disconsolate before
seeming to accept some fate
and then swim through without
trouble. No function of size
or experience (certainly not
experience – there is no
dress rehearsal for life)
can explain which will answer
the call they all hear
and which will slide sideways
to a slow death gasping
near shore tilted unnaturally
staring up at nothing.
If my friends and I could speak,
there could be no talk
of winners and losers,
no hushed murmurings
of dread and desire,
of fulfillment and failure,
since the same end awaits
all and when is now or then.
Lessons from such compact senescence,
whether of salmon or daffodils,
sadly pass largely unnoticed –
much less learned.