Poem: Lucky Second

 

Lucky Second

 

the clear of the mind

is the still of the room

is the quiet of angels

looking down at a blue 

much bigger than anything before,

so many aspects,

too many to approach with words,

the effort itself a trap,

all attempts moot,

the first the last,

and yet passion rushes in 

amid sheep and bones,

to jump ghosts of ink 

onto a purity of paper.

 

and so there they are

words, words, words, 

falling off pinnacles never reached,

tarred-and-feathered with flourishes,

fresh only for a lucky second 

in the magical glissade of time.

 

words, words, words, 

fascinations and misgivings,

promises and desperate sins, 

ideals and brazen naked tears

which wallow 

on the hot harsh sheep-baahed, bone-strewn ground,

summarized

 as if crawling on a sideways ladder,

a ladder that could be ceaseless piano keys

whose music is symbol, mask, pride,

a flailing, frothing fate to drown 

in the inability to get it right. 

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7/20/24 eds