TYRANTS
DRIVE PAST STATUES OF THEMSELVES
Tyrants are fleeing their countries in
black limousines
driving past statues of themselves
huddled in back seats, counting
on anonymity,
driving past statues of themselves
erected during their salad days,
hoping against hope to get to the borders unrecognized,
their last days of iron-fisted action
backfired, explosions bouncing back
like repeated radio broadcasts
in their hectic brains,
their loyal armies shooting into shouting crowds of comrades
backfiring until
giant shouting comrade-crowds fill palace doorways
demanding
tyrant
blood
who now flee by back roads, at night, in
black limousines
driving past statues of themselves.
12/23
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ICE SWANS
The future's as bright as the
eye that beholds it. The
past's as dark as the eye that
shuts down its revisionist lids over what was,
in all its
fluted subterfuges. Now the
present's another matter altogether. We're always going
on and on about the present, the
present this, the present that, be
totally in the
present, the
now is
all there is, whereas in fact
the
present doesn't exist. As
soon as it's
passed our
lips, it's past. We are a
momentary opacity before
eternity's transparency. So much light getting
through sculpts us like a
chef sculpts ice-swans just before the
banquet, but as soon as a
form has fully emerged, or even a
little bit before, it starts
to melt. When the
evening's over, a cold
puddle's all that
remains.
Forms disintegrate at the
peak of their perfection. Elderly
couples waltz and
fox-trot around it, beads of
icy sweat roll down
rounded wings, the
fox-trotters also
fluttering insubstantially before the
greater movement of the
stars. A
larger dimension always
engulfs us. No
need to cry out. The
demons have all
turned to butterflies. See, there they
go above the blazing farmhouse. Twilight catches
the falling
powder of their
wings.
4/14
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