Beauty/Truth Truth/Beauty
…and I should mention methane
1
The komodo dragon is heading
toward extinction.
Those with fire on their breath
are known to enjoy their neighbors’ ankles
singed on the outside, rare on the inside.
Evolution now in crampons
begs for mercy.
The fairground of the faithful
watching pixies gargle,
gargle up enough spit
so like the witch of the west
the faithful dissolve.
A match breaks.
Splinters infect a finger,
the box scatters
on the tiled kitchen floor
like bones in a desert.
Takes a needle—
forget the scattered matches.
2
So much written about beauty.
Bottom line: the sun on a lily
the nightingale’s cough.
Not the butterflies pirating other flies’ larva.
Not the snapping turtle eating a fish’s ass.
No, the sun the lilies the cough
add up to: there must be truth,
there must be sapiens’ solidarity–
Beautiful! Take a baby’s smile,
melts your heart like snow under a heat lamp,
butter running off the plate,
like the truth.
3
Born in a ghetto
after ghettos.
Born in a cellar
after all the cellars are flooded.
Born at the birth of most people living
born in wait
For what they all wait for.
Why not wait?
your iron mask is not so heavy
To soften the mud under your feet
methane stinks up the well mowed grass
Congregants recognize it,
you can see it on their faces.
At this point the poet tries to staunch the bleeding
(reject pessimism),
Resist the drive to punish
tell the heron you love her
Make a date.
I travel with a rose bush on the back seat.
Each overnight I water the plant, heading home.
After 300 or 400 miles
I wonder if the blossoms
that survive the bumps
feel at home in my car
