SANS CAFFEINE

  

All I do is sit

with my head in my hands,

unable to think. And I stare

out the window at myself,

as I squat on the curb

like a blind beggar, holding out

my empty cup

to the agitated

passers-by: those who have had

their fix of morning coffee.

 

I keep falling asleep

in the middle of my work,

with fitful dreams

that are not

Wish-fulfilling Gems.

 

How many days

will I languish here,

like a marionette

hung up by its strings

in the dead master’s attic?

Perhaps the wind

will blow in through

these shattered glass panes--

enough to make me dance

and swing in mid-air;

enough to dispel

these wistful

and abortive

dreams.

 

FEBRUARY 10, 1995

  

a glance of sunlight upon

the Venetian blinds,

                                 lifting

th’illimitable Universe of Things

outside of Time.

                           Was it David Hume?

I cannot remember

what he said of Causation—

my Tabula Rasa is nought

                                           but

the traffic on Rowe Boulevard,

the empty Lobby

at the Maryland State Archives—

                                                  lifted—

so to speak—beyond

causation:

                  “Unborn, Undying”

…..simplicity

of the Pink Poinsettia

setting near the Registration Desk:

a leftover from Christmas past

this almost Valentine’s Day…..

 

lifted beyond causation: Hmmm…

“And when I am raised

up, I will draw

all men unto me”…..

                              What does this mean?

a literary Socrates

pulls at the cord of the blinds,

sometimes revealing more

sometimes less

of the Measureless Light

 

the Lankavatara Sutra

                                    reveals

the Unborn Receptionist’s

Name: no Tetragrammaton,

This—but a glance

                               of sunlight

upon the Venetian blinds…..

 

     VITREOUS FLOATERS

  

Muscae volitantes they are called,

The Latin for our English “flying flies;”

A term for defects or impurities

Developed in the middle aged eye-ball,

When cells and strands of tissue flake and fall

And float around as one surveys the scene--

Especially one nearsighted, like me.

Best viewed are they against a sky or wall.

Sometimes these flying flies conglomerate

And fall upon the inner eye’s bent floor,

Where they remain until you shake the orb--

And then, as snowflakes in a paper weight

Are churned up from the landscape they disguise, 

They pirouette and swirl within your eyes! 

 AUGUST THE SECOND

  

Blue helmets, bobbing on the heads

Of scurrying school children,

Distract ones gaze toward the cliffs

Of hazy Sugarloaf Mountain.

 

They’re warned to be on the lookout

For hidden Timber Rattlesnakes,

Copperheads in the Poison Oak,

Root-cracked footholds that might break.

 

This mountain’s rustic pioneers

Compared it to a sugar loaf.

They must have gotten hungry here,

While they explored its unmapped slopes!

 

The Sugarloaf, geologically,

Is what we call a Monadnock:

The countryside was worn away

Around its quartzite hulk of rock.

 

These things take time. I stand forth here

Unknown, unnamed and unexplored;

No soul in sight for years and years;

This mountain of my verse ignored.

 

No matter: what I earn of fame

Will take its sweet time to accrue.

My settlers will invent a name

That suits my life of solitude.

 

A holiday will mark my birth

One day in the Eternal Now—

When children scale the rugged earth

That wrinkles on my ancient brow!