Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Rarrr

EARLY IN A NEW YEAR

Maybe scientists have found Mozart’s skull

and it’s possible one man has brought

back from extinction the miniature zebra

called the quagga, but in both cases

genetic tests are not conclusive. List for me,

would you, what this world knows

about the next. And the ones in a chain

beyond these. Draw out the diagram

that will prove the rate of decay

in that star, that cobalt flickering one

we see each night in bed, and

in the calcium lode that is my femur, my thigh

where your hands, your mouth

have been – show me how it is true

I am receding from you like a star

and I won’t sleep at all. Dissolve

the endless parade of dumb

that is this story I keep professing

each morning. It isn’t me that dreams of me

orbiting the moon like a moth,

I swear. Somewhere within there is

an impudent cell that recalls

some other life, some other apple green world,

and when I am quiet and still,

when I stop speaking out

to the motion of the water ringing the drain,

I hear its story, I listen

like a child and in that darkness the monsters sing.

5 comments:

David HG said...

...Draw out the diagram / that will prove the rate of decay / in that star, that cobalt flickering one / we see each night in bed, and / in the calcium lode that is my femur, my thigh / where your hands, your mouth / have been - show me how it is true / I am receding from you like a star / and I won't sleep at all.

This is such a cool use of the artifact / aging metaphor vis-a-vis your body - relationship. I dig this.

Paul said...

Thanks, man...

Artichoke Heart said...

I read this yesterday and I loved it, and I came back to read it again today, and I love it even more.

Paul said...

Thank you, my first new poem of '06!

Steven D. Schroeder said...

Good stuff, Paul