Poem: Stars On a Lake

 

Stars On a Lake

 

still and serene, but then frantic:

sizzle-sidles of ping pong balls

energized à la cartoon.

 

no more noblesse.

no more immortal carriage,

staid of constellation.

 

the great curtain of the velvet-forever 

now pulled to puppet

a sparkler-melee of cosmic jugglers.

 

what could this mean? 

these torn seizures of hypersonic beasts,

Canus, Draconus, Cygnus?

 

this fireworks of armageddon?

 

everything, now, the whole damned dome,

so volatile and fragile,

heaving to corkscrew, wamble, 

and oscillate.

 

so bright!

and yet dim this fervor of chaos,

this once-peaceful, logical course,

 

smacked by the flap and flutter,

of a single disgruntled quack

from a less-than-spectacular swan.  

=============================================

5/28/24 ... 

1/16   "a la cartoon" replaces "in a cartoon"... "puppet" replaces "expose"... added "wamble"

1/15 (hours after posting) ... "swan" replaces "duck" ... "exposed" replaces "revealed"