wine and effort

I've wasted the air,
the wine and the effort.
The sand of my past
is a colorful desert
of hungering creatures
I never meant to birth:
a garland of evolution
in a place lacking silence.

So many paths
through an animated wasteland -
they were all wrong.
With the tiny, shiny medals
pinned to my heart,
and the sky's diploma
lettered in my eye -
they were all wrong.
And the new right path
is another error
I've never committed
and never will.

So many failures
that dwarf my small successes
in a jeweler's sky.


April 4
("Early morning, April 4", U2)

An explorer at least has a mountain, a river,
and the visioned valley beyond
that stinks with flowers, is dizzy
with every kind of growing thing.

A shark or a honeybee
has the distant scent or color
pulling on the rope of hunger.

All that is, is moving toward
something else that moves - what
in this universe of spinning
and centers, drew you near
the land of perfect clarity?

What let you see the promise
was something that could be kept?

There are among us now such souls
as can call an arson candlelight.
Loiterers are wagering,
bouncing dice off walls
of the burning house, and laughing.

We are chartless in the flood.

Somewhere, in the song of green,
a disembodied glowing hovers
among the profusions of perfume,
the tall shafts of sunlight.

The Colossus topples in the harbor,
crushing boats, tossing waves
to random compass points.

Somewhere, in the song of green.

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