a demand made merely by the realization that you are here - We were elsewhere? You are here, on this shore that is as certain as the sand. It beckons: for some it taunts write your name. Leave a mark. Tell us what happened, how it taints you. Write it in the sand before the tide. Call it a legacy if you will-- and yes, you will, you urge and urge, All Nature urges through you saying, write it in the sand.
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meet to study whether the earth will continue forever or whether the end is in sight. One scientist says the earth’s orbit spins in synchronicity with man’s ignorance so it will go on forever. One scientist says god has thrown heaven’s garbage into this hole and the weight of all that garbage exceeds critical mass so we will all be killed. One scientist who was raised in a good home says look at how many organisms coalesce and reproduce. Cell division all of nature and the deep oceans are very divine. One scientist says, shit. The first scientist who was the greatest scientist of all stands in front of the committee and says listen to me. One scientist in the back of the room pulls the fire alarm. Listen to me listen to me says the first scientist as the committee scrambles from the room. Isn’t this beautiful says the scientist whose family loved him. You can see this.
Watch the mountain. Watch closely, for some time. Watch for ten million years. Stay as long as you like. The earth heaves up a mountain. Or the mountain heaves up itself. Watching will not tell us which. It emerges. The mountain crests from the earth into the sky then crashes down, or dissolves, melting back into the earth like a great stone wave, a wave breaking so slowly. It says, I am no more solid than rain. The world urges mountains in their season urges apples from branches, urges babies from their amnion. They are of a piece. An apple is a mountain. An apple self-complicates from blossom to flesh fills with juice, drops, urges back to soil to make more apples. No one demands this, not god, it happens. You might say all of it is a verb. hear her screaming at her sister in the backyard dragging on a clove cigarette stroking her cockatoo, a rescue cockatoo that won’t fly eats raisins and talks it says Pete is a dumb fucker it says Oh boy oh man. She screams at her sister Won’t you please I’m begging you don’t make me ask again. She heaves an unopened can of tomato paste out the screen door where the screen is torn off. It arcs over the lawn and hits her sister square in the ribs. Her sister screams back god dammit I fuckin hate you the bird jumps from her shoulder to the ground can't fly and picks its armpit with the pointy beak tip not an armpit not a wingpit maybe an underwing I can’t stop wondering what to call it while she is still screaming at her sister who charges for the back door intent I think on retribution for the sauce can attack. Stay away from me I told you I told you so many times. You fucking canned me you twat. Her sister slaps her face open palm leaving red fingerstreaks. She cries while her sister remains indignant until they break and collapse on each others’ shoulders faces in the armpits wet sobbing until she shoves her sister away. You stupid cow I hate you go fuck yourself you whore. And her sister goes out for the bird. Oh, I see. I might have brought it up. But not having to do with me, just I mean, the wind is a very deceiving thing. First of all, we don’t make the windmills in the United States. They’re made in Germany and Japan. They’re made out of massive amounts of steel, which goes into the atmosphere, whether it’s in our country or not, it goes into the atmosphere. The windmills kill birds and the windmills need . . . I mean, for the most part they don’t work. I don’t think they work at all . . . and that bothers me, and they kill all the birds. You go to a windmill, you know in California they have the, what is it? The golden eagle? And they’re like, if you shoot a golden eagle, they go to jail for five years and yet they kill them by, they actually have to get permits that they’re only allowed to kill 30 or something in one year. The windmills are devastating to the bird population, O.K? . . . So, if I talk negatively, I’ve been saying the same thing for years about you know, the wind industry . . . Some environmentalists agree with me very much because of all of the things I just said, including the birds, and some don’t. But it’s hard to explain. * Original text by Pres. D. Trump, verbatim, in an interview with the NYT Editorial Board, 23 Nov 2016. |
Poems from Other Days
September 2021
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