Thursday, October 16

some things from a notebook: one old page,

there's nothing that dictates
the universe has to be aesthetically pleasing

nothing says all of this
is supposed to be beautiful
or even especially pleasant

the music of the spheres
might well be kind of
a grating dull roar
or the sound of your
fingernails on an authentic
slate chalkboard

and if it is,
well then all your trying
to see a world that's not ugly
comes to jack squat

you could believe
everything's in harmony
or god is in his heaven
and this fallen world
will be redeemed
or progresss is inevitable;
that evolution is going
to lift us up by our bootstraps;
or all we've got to do,
really, is be objective
and let a sensawunda
gloss neatly over things

but sooner or later
you might also note the
very real possibility
that it's just ugly
or even worse
that it's not much of anything

don't worry,
knowing you like i do
i'm pretty sure it'll pass.

another,

if you wanted
a philosophy of life
i'll bet i could cobble
you together two or three
in an afternoon
the parts are laying around
all over the place if you look

i keep tripping over them

and one new

we throw a disc for a while,
go listen to benjamin barber talk
about democracy and education
which are nice words like 'freedom',
even if busy men are making them
as ever
into bad comedy and worse history

october has its own light
people keep writing these things
because they are true
it contains cold, silver, purple
the remaining green, made deeper
and it fills the wind
which falls into waves and vortices
water motion and oceanshine a thousand miles
from any sea

it curves the sky differently,
makes much of streetlamps and plane surfaces
makes shadow less a master
of its own fate
it is a month of eclipse illumination
and maddened insects dying while
pelts thicken and grain rattles,
even in lincoln you
can hear harvest noises if you try

i sojourn for a while in the library,
and walk home through all this
writing these words in my head
wondering if i am numb
or only waiting.

p1k3 / 2003 / 10 / 16
tags: topics/poem