CUL-DE-SAC
Dead white stucco
scuffed, prolapsed: a box
to bury goldfish
Dead in scarred driveway,
scourge to we neighbors
who pray for more or
less, that bulbous 50's
pickup rusts all year:
sunny state license plates
long ago expired
And as the whole tableaux
becomes unbearable
as we brief complaints --
come December someone
strings lights on the truck
Red drops delineate
flatbed
transfix the grill
In the dark at the wheel
stiff-robed, beard molded
man-sized
sits Jesus --
injection plastic --
lit deep within
We do not mean to pause
to risk frayed power cord
but manifold he multiplies
no matter where we stand --
refracts windshield's refulgence
eclipses (plastic) form
soundlessly suffuses cab
Luciferous lozenge
lodged in carapace
ground stained carnie snow-cone:
inside our eyes squint-proof
phosphene -- Epiphany
before we see
that all the light is past
Lurid or miraculous: ask
over the Fourth's third beer
Surely stored with tarps and shovels
Or reduced, returned to cradle
in the matte rafters of the garage
where we never look
or dream of bloodsoaked floormats
something to fill our rear-views
someone to pull us in
HERR KEPLER'S NOTEBOOK
Time is the bully anchor of the opposing tug-rope team.
The person with a happy home life tracks glitter through the world; the solitary person leaves snowprints.
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"The grasshopper warbler's song comes up out of the earth just as you think the day is quietening down. It has no prelude or warm-up: it starts midperformance, as if switched on by the dark, as it if has been singing like this beneath the earth until it was dark enough to come to the surface. As if, though we hardly hear it, this singing never stops."
A Year on the Wing (Tim Dee)
All writing and cartoons on this site copyright 2008-2010 Julia Martin, unless otherwise credited.
The person with a happy home life tracks glitter through the world; the solitary person leaves snowprints.
-------------------------------------
"The grasshopper warbler's song comes up out of the earth just as you think the day is quietening down. It has no prelude or warm-up: it starts midperformance, as if switched on by the dark, as it if has been singing like this beneath the earth until it was dark enough to come to the surface. As if, though we hardly hear it, this singing never stops."
A Year on the Wing (Tim Dee)
All writing and cartoons on this site copyright 2008-2010 Julia Martin, unless otherwise credited.
Wow. This is eerie. Is it (as my friend Dana would say) for realz?
ReplyDeleteThe last stanza requires a lot of chewing, but it rewards it.
I've worked on this one over a period of years, but it hasn't yet jelled. Perhaps in my dotage.
ReplyDeleteAnd absolutely for realz. One year slips of paper accumulated under a wiper blade; I so hoped for an incipient shrine. But alas, I've never seen anyone stop but me.
Also as full-disclosure, figure actually must be one of the Kings. We Three Kings of Orient Are/Torn Between a Truck or a Car.
The truck hasn't yet appeared this year. My fingers are tightly crossed.
Let me know when I'm allowed to link to you :-) (Though unless blogrolling.com gets its act together, I'm going to have to get a new blogroll. It's been weeks since they said they were going to fix things so that you could add new links. I'm starting to lose faith in them.)
ReplyDelete