One does not play
a scale for the sake of the scale.
One cat bats at
a band of light on the tiles; another sleeps on the red chair, eyes
tucked under her left front leg. Doves murmur
in back, birds of a higher
register in front; the wind participates in it
all. Doing
nothing themselves, my
sentences lay down track
without presuming to know direction. The
hardest assignment of all was to do nothing each day. Guilt,
like a thin layer of plastic, adheres to your self-license. You
have no right to sit and stare when there are teas and perfumes to
sell at the mall. Condos for the rich rise
like
toadstools from the Ala Moana parking lot. The park between mall and
the sea has filled with a tide of tents and tarps. Toadstool
is to fungus as penis is to man. The
beauty of function so outstripped by this wall of unblinking glass.
What you see from it
cannot possibly be
yourself.
1 comment:
Whoa am I behind in commenting!! Your last two sentences here are AMAZING, that look into the glass, which implies so much in the moment with the tent city behind you. The only sentence I'd suggest cutting is the toadstool/penis sentence, for two reasons: it feels disjointed and pulls me out of the poem, and that analogous construction you use often, so why not strip it away when it's not doing the work it does elsewhere? It's a great poem, S. I love the quote about the scales - so much to think about.
Post a Comment