Unfinished Business

The universe lies snugly tucked
inside my head.
Only my private time scale
has been altered, somewhat--
I await the final leap of the tiger.
Under the old paint of all biological
possibilities, morning and noontime

have come and gone into the dark void
around the roots that hold shape and size
and color in focus.
The House that Jack Built
becomes a hall of mirrors, a maze
of horrors. Nightmare Alley,
the beginning of learning

is not spectacular
the way sex is spectacular, for instance,
the way the Fourth-of-July is spectacular.
Still, I dance to this dispassionate drummer.
Restless sticks rap out messages
that define the fall of sparrows,
the toil of lilies,
and all degrees of human contact
from sleep to deepest coma,
to death itself.
And still I have not finished
with the Judas drums,
the death-rattle of breath,
with the random motion of stars
or gulls wings beating on waves.


photo: ozproductions
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