[from Jillian Brall's Wet Information, ZoeWo, 2009]
Symptomatic
This sacred stuff.
Doesn't it scare you stiff?
While you log and categorize
your resistances and right angles,
animals are hatching from a variety of shells,
satellites are being installed in house craniums,
and you are staring at something sweet
that someone has thrown in a sewer.
This stone stuff.
Doesn't it sculpt you as you sculpt it?
While you log and categorize
your skills and deficiencies,
the sad saga sags on,
the stories of other people,
the splendor of success.
It makes you stupid.
This sharp stuff.
Doesn't it shape you like Moses' staff?
While you log and categorize
your potential and probable downfalls,
slogans are shoving their way through your showerhead,
there's more to the scum you scrape than you thought,
and the stickiness is something scientists and patent offices dream of.
This soapy stuff.
What does it conceal beneath its film?
While you log and categorize
your measurements and magnetism,
the sun seeps through the blinds
and you slither on the floor.
Sure, we all know
standing stinks.
"Sea Surface Full of Clouds" it ain't, but it captures something of our modern recoil at the thought of being outside our created borders.
ReplyDeleteI think of Vallejo:
"At the end, in the end, at last, logic, the boundaries of fire, the farewell remembering that goodbye..."