Kashtanka in Charge
The goose died in the night.
The pig was brought in.
Kashtanka ran back to her master,
Already a cur, abject, ridiculed,
But still suffering the final humiliation
Of the bone on the string,
Swallowed and revoked over and over.
A force must be applied to charge a battery
To move the lithium ions
And generate the current.
Charge and discharge, back and forth.
Can I make it through the dendritic forest,
And follow the path the electrons do not follow?
As long as the impression is not the reality.
The Mentors
Their glittering bright selves I view from afar,
But not from the wood of ghosts and chimeras
Nor the banks of a frozen Lethe,
But from a ship at anchor
On the imperturbable dark sea.
Although unreachable,
They slip through my grasp,
Almost close enough to feel.
In belief there is strength.
In nothing there is peace.
Irremediable is the waste of words
Unless nonsense is turned to gold.
In a moment, there isn’t time,
Wake up, in a moment.
Upon Reading Too Much T. S. Elliott
The saturnine old man, bald-headed, and bespectacled
Asked a ridiculous question,
Two people in a ridiculous situation,
Overheard when the door was ajar,
Before the sound of the sea (or something) droned them out.
I contemplated the magazines and paintings—
Two ducks flying and fish in a beaker.
Vague waiting for no end,
At the crap point of the turning crap,
No resolve, no consolation,
Not even a friend.
The other adhered to the works of the Viennese doctor.
The waiting under the arch for the man in the sequined jacket
Would have been explained, analyzed, and given meaning,
If I had mentioned it.
Dreams are simple in what they mean
Because everything is as it may seem.
Vague waiting for a sequined friend,
The arch could have been found in the rose garden,
If it were not for sarcastic laughter
Under the flickering lightbulbs.
The man with the plan in the wopsical hat
Meant well.
He hid the terrier
Amidst landscapes and dreamscapes;
Only a minor character.
Here a little dog I pause for thought
But let it lie.
After/Thought Literary 