7 Overtures to 2009 (Mikrokosmos)

The Pythia on her rock seat
inhaling rot learned to recite
before Homer's age the very first
hexameters a human voiced.
Full of reek, dead dragon slouch,
the reptile on its rocky ledge,
the putrid serpent, was the true
inspirer of pure poetry.

____Tony Harrison






____i.
Mozart won't walk too slow.
an adagio is never an adagio;
he knew better than most
what happens when you roll to a stop.
so he rolls on,
and the stop paces besides him casually,
nodding slightly, and licking his lips
thinking of the meal the forthcoming
two coins will buy him.


____ii.
- new year's resolution?, you do them?
- yeah, i always have a bunch.
- what have you got then?, __this year
- __thought for ages, only came up with one.
- one isn't enough?
- it is.
- ...
- ...
- so?
- what is it?
- yeah.
- be someone else.
- what kind of resolution is that?
- ___the hardest kind.


____iii.
and today someone looks at me a while.
you been wearing glasses long?
i smile. no. kinda new. he nods,
tapping his hand on his knee to the song.
stares past the lake, where a fish leaps and is heard falling
back in, is it good to be home? as he stares sidelong past me
on not receiving an answer, looks at me kindly
as i assess the words good and home separately
and finally smile back. you know what, it's too long since...
but decide instead to cut to the chase: yeah, it is good.


____iv. (Monz & Mar... thanks for caring)
and news travels in stages.
thoughts to sound, or images.
tapping of keyboards, reflective smiles
selecting photos.
waves reaching shores. a slight lapping sound.
truth is truth, nothing stands still.

q, you ok?

(and wind ruffles sails
and hair, and you've seen it
on a screen, or divined it from the motion of clouds,
and at last leadheavy and permanent as an anchor
it reaches my belly.
not a word spoken about it,
just drifting thoughts, empty bottles, footsteps in sand,
drying seaweed, bruised wood,
the relics of memory, phantasms of all that ever can't be. (is)

yeah. fu&* it. i am.


____v.
this new thing.
wrapped.
made.

( me! )


____vi.
as i unpack my boxes. photographs. books. pens. paper. clothes. i think back to two years ago. and how i didn't have the chance. all that had to happen to thwart these hands touching these objects for 724 days.
(this is the same song , ___in a new key.
(the same life, but a new me)

i stare at shapes, and wonder where i've been all this time


____vii.
and all that's left is past.
and all that's left is passed.
and all that's left is past.
and all that's left is passed.
and all that's left is past.
and all that's left is passed.

?)