Michael Schiavo / Rubaiyat

I
The minister came and too my congressman—and neither of them with a solid plan of how to make the Experiment stick—so now to we, with our small, shaky hands—

II
What is gold but bronze less democratic?—and sugar simply salt sifted demonic—skepticism is righteousness with fewer words—and ice only fire of a different electric—

III
The cows have all become flightless birds carrying the mountain within their herd—the villagers take aim at the largest centermost—that they might be graced by her effigaic turds—

IV
If Christ is King and the President His Host, History’s barrels hold not enough to toast this eerie union of Peace and War, and drink my condolences to the Holy Ghost—

V
(Under willow tree or tripping unawares—you are not here and you are not there—while Love’s refraction is mere Science to some, to me: the slender needle that brought the world to bear—)

VI
Place in the bowl blackberries and plums, and other fruit alive and troublesome—O National, O Neighbor, now closing the mall, who’d rather peel morning jam than evening rum—

VII
The man who thinks as a cosmos, however small, sees things manifold and large—(all that can come of thinking’s a grief unmoved—and a pang from time to time to disenthrall—)

VIII
If I could mourn like a mourning dove, I would pour into your coffers the slop of Love—and feed you forever the Virginia swamps—to prove there’s nothing below us, and even less above—

IX
The steps we step cause the crickets’ jump—and though we progress with inelegance, we refuse to stomp—in this we are unlike our cousins who, in dewy combos, past and future, romp—


X
(Never would I call this is the end—never will I say “the end” until the End—in the Last Gray increased, that too soon twilight where prompt the Hope we carry
us terrible bends—)

XI
But we’re neither false dawn nor midnight—nor the levee broken nor the river in its might flooding the Capitol, and Pennsylvania Avenue—merely a drunk awakened, confusing his right from his left, from his right, his right—

XII
I give to you a weather fine, of unlit blue, to make of it what you will and what you do—a strange tree, budded, sent from who-knows-where—a weird hand leaving unkempt curlicues—

XIII
Ornament me maybe with your pipe dreams drained, and dare me at last a breath unbared upon the table of our wish: to hold you close—to hold you closer—and begin repairs—


CUE:  A Journal of Prose Poetry
Summer 2006 Volume III, Issue 2