Saturday, February 05, 2011

Never Mind

We were escaping into Egypt, like the god babies we are.
"Maybe never," I broke in on the transmission. Across the
border many brains jostled for position in the sunny square.
"Our bodies are like pikes!" the voice said.
"Then our brains are double cheeseburgers on trays
hustled to us by curb service youths!" said another.
"Always boys," someone shouted. "Forever."
As the sun found the two o'clock slot a premonition
went up a pole. But since it seemed to go down the
pole it was considered the best evidence for the fear.
The brain is leaving the mind. We knew it. The eyes knew it.
The eyes looked over their shoulders in panic.
Nothing could be righted. Not ever.
"Invert! Invert!" chanted the crowds of minds.
High above the square, on heated tiles, the
people-of-the-bloodied-foreheads knelt, dripping.
Stones and cement had fallen back into their faces.
Someone in a billowing lab coat, with a blue crescent roll
on the back, raced into the square with new results.
"Gravity is only in the brain. Without a brain we are lost
in the clouds, forever!" We would never know the answer
to the cyclonic mystery of cream pouring into coffee or
why apple trees don't always do their best. But we
would finally know where birds go when they die.
I put down the bright red hookah hose.
I was high above Cairo now, and I noticed two things:
One, politics are hidden away under the clothes, and
two, anger is very tiny.

6 comments:

Kim said...

None of the Usual Suspects are commenting on this poem? All I have to say is that when I finish this comment I will have to type the word "pansie" to verify my identity..no I am not kidding. This is one strange poem, dude. Love it.

Susan Ryder said...

Kim told me to post this Wordle on your blog.

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/3123314/Ron

Enjoy!

La Ruth said...

Aha! Here you are. And the poems of unknowing. Hi Ron. Egypt is a rockstar. But I wonder if we were at the same concert?

ron hardy said...

Hi Ruth. I know it's not the Concert for Bangladesh. But it may be The Concert for Burma Shave. You tell me.

La Ruth said...

Burma Shave ?? You lost me. Or more likely this exceeds my capacity for cleverness.

ron hardy said...

Just plain silly. Burma Shave is a shaving cream that was advertised in the 40's and 50's with rhyming slogans on a series of small roadside signs. May still be around.