POETRY
Krakatoa, East of Java (1968)
At the time of the cataclysm
You tumbled screaming into an endless slash in the earth
(what screaming — you threw yourself down it)
Leaving me to walk east to west until once again facing east on an endless
Möbius strip of a tiny beach
“Oh Universe and God,” I never cried out to the surf, which lapped more than pounded, “How much can a man take?”
“You’re not a man,” whispered the wind, or perhaps it was guitar amp static, “You’re a dumb boy. You can take everything I dish out.
You’ll be a man when I’m done with you.”
When I lost you
You weren’t the real loss, were you?
You were a MacGuffin
The microfilm in North by Northwest
Catalyzing the transformation of Cary Grant
The real loss was me, wasn’t it?
(Circa 1985)
Capable of planning on forever
Thinking that words change minds
And love conquers all
Me
(Circa 2022)
Knows forever changes
That words must be husbanded and deployed tactically
And love never conquers but is forever surrendering and letting go
These days no one gets me out in a cornfield to wait for a bus
Or off that strip of sand bound by high and low tidelines
To moon about like a sweet dumb kid
A peach of a guy, still on the tree
