Three Poems

 

O Rock!

Hey, Rock, you, on the shoulder of the road,
How'd you get here? You're the size of
Small cobble—too big to pass for gravel.
No bluffs nearby from which you might have rolled.

Were you, perhaps, some kid's pet rock?
You looked so cute, tucked in your straw.
But then you grew too big and rough and ugly
To be kept. Mom and dad said, "We'll let Rocky
Loose so he can be with all the other rocks."
Going out to get McNuggets, they tossed
You on the roadside. "He'll be happy there,"
They told the kid, who sniveled for effect.

Did you fall from the sky? Weightless and free
You once were, as no earthly rock could be.
Constant and secure in your momentum,
If not for getting bullied by a bigger rock.
Oh no, Icarus, you got too close! Instant
Stardom—a flash of glorious flame. Then
You fell to earth, a rock, an ordinary rock

You're much too big to pass for gravel but
Small enough to be kicked around. Like this.

 

Dense Fog Advisory

A warm December morning after rain.
Hooded in fog, the world is sunk in gray—
a monotone of hush and threat. As if
the secret police had come during the night.

Going door to door they took IDs then
took the residents, took their houses, cars,
lawn ornaments too. A single blackened tree
looms at my window, witnesses the loss.

Dawn does not come. Democritus said,
This is how things really are. By convention
cold, by convention color; in reality
atoms and void—an elemental haze.

Beyond the fog that hides the streets and houses,
beyond the dawn concealed by banks of cloud,
Orion's nebulosity churns atoms into stars.

 

Damnatio Memoriae

is a term of art for what you do
to images of the former guy.
Nero, for instance, or your ex.

Taking the familiar first—with
scissors, fire or Photoshop
you slash, destroy or edit the pics.
Zap!—as though they never were.

That's what the Romans did.
Not just when they were drunk
and feeling sore—but in the same
methodical way that they did
roads, bridges, conquest and plumbing,
bad emperors were expunged.

Nero, for example, once dead,
it was off with all his painted hydra heads.
Not as easy a thing those days as now.
There's no deleting marble so
put the new guy's head atop the toga.
Same idea with frescos, coins and terracotta:
erase or deface the person in disgrace.

Thrifty recycling perhaps. But not
without a notion that if you do more
than carelessly forget,
if you obliterate the past,
drive a stake right through its evil heart,
it can't come back.
What I want to know is—
Does it work? Is it worth a try?