Men on a Rope

The long, thick, silk rope is fraying

At the edges and looks like the flowing

Gray hair of Merlin or another doctor

Of the occult who can hold worlds

In tension until the sands run out.

The rope that is thick enough to moor

A battleship and badly weathered by salt

Is strung between the two sides

Of a milk white mausoleum like

Lines in a zoo, complex enough

With its snake ladder turns

To keep the animals amused.

Along this silken hemp, this hint

Of hawser, old men

With drooping breasts and damaged

Faces traverse, squabble and then

Fall into the underbrush, finding slight

Nourishment in ground cover.

There is a sing-song quality

To this rope-a-dope or dope

On a rope as the old guys

Go it alone, bumping into

A version of themselves nearby

On another thread, close

At hand but distant, nothing

Said as they continue to lunge

Curse and fall into the autumn leaves.

One soul with the same drooping

Breasts and damaged face

But completely naked makes a silken

Path for himself, not through bluster

But through reciting stories of man’s

Successes and failures and when

He is left out to dry. The farther

He traveled along the silken rope,

The more he praised the others

And the more progress he made.

When the story teller reached

The end of his rope at the far

High side of the mausoleum

He saw a large hook that looked

Like an upside down question mark.

In the distance the traveler spots

What must be described

As a modest hole in the wall

Large enough for the average male

Head, but surely not for the muscles

That always lag behind.