Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Illustré (Balloon)

Because you can't fly
you invent the balloon
and suspend yourself
in a basket below it.
And because you want to fly
you add propellers and a rudder
to make it go
where you want it to.
And because you are human
you take it to war.
First, to observe the enemy
and later in an attempt
to drop bombs on them.
But you are big and  slow
an easy target
and someone else
will invent the airplane.
You are left to drift
as incongruous as a whale
out of water, or a man
in the air without wings
or a magic suit of any kind.
The magician without an assistant.
The assistant, suddenly reappearing
in the street, years after
the famous disappearing act
that failed to come true.

Saturday, November 19, 2016

The Pond

I talk to the pond,
to its black metallic surface,
and it talks back.
Not the frogs and dragonflies
but the pond itself
talks in a low hum
like an airplane taking off
in the next county,
or a book hitting the floor
dropped from the hand of a sleeper
in a house two miles away.
The pond says nothing
terrible is about to happen.
The plane will land safely
at its destination and the book
will be retrieved from the floor
by the sleeper as he prepares
for bed. Nothing bad
is hidden in the depths
of the water: a bicycle, the remains
of an ancient civilization
reproduced in popsicle sticks
and playdough. The abandoned,
forgotten before they even broke
the surface of the dark
mirror they inhabit.