beginning

August 4, 2022

ON ARRIVING

They arrive after a long flight
from tyranny, from oppression
from the nightmare of endless
fear, from hunger, from faith
denied, from the bottomless
depths of poverty, scarred
memories etched in their souls,
hoping for an ending as much
as wishing for a new beginning.
They have been here, a new
generation, raised on the stories,
versed in the painful history,
still residual anger born
of love for those who fled,
without the pain of experience,
who can forget when it is
others who now wish only
to arrive to the freedom they
have known since childhood

First appeared in Circumference, Issue 5, June 2022
https://poetryatpi.wordpress.com/

July 5, 2022

BOOM

The end is coming. That is the inescapable result of a beginning. We don’t like that but we are powerless to do anything about it. We can dread it, but it will do no good. Or we can posit that every ending is followed by a beginning. That may give us temporary comfort. But perhaps we should ask the ultimate question: What was there before the first beginning. Listen for the sound of the Big Bang before you answer.

February 1, 2022

A QUESTION OF TIMING

Umberto Eco, I believe,
intending to or not,
has found the perfect way
to bring classic plays
back to life, to enable us
to reinterpret these
old works, to hold their
reincarnated selves dear.

All you need do is decide
whether you are one
who prefers beginnings
or finds ends more satisfying.

Go see Hamlet, but miss
the first act or so, and muse
on why he is anguished,
why his familial bonds
have all so badly frayed.

And make the late arrival
a staple of your Shakespeare
dramas, you’ll thank me
later, no one needs
that much bloodshed
and there is bodycount
enough in real life anyway.

October 27, 2020

ROADS

The problem with roads
is that they all must lead
somewhere, and if lucky, with
other theres along the way.

I prefer roads that have
no beginnings or ends,
that go where they will
and change direction on a whim.

On my roads you never
arrive late because there
is no point at which to arrive,
so you are always timely.

Friends laugh when I say this,
say such roads cannot exist
at least until I point out
that life is just such a road.

August 3, 2019

IN THE BEGINNING

You so very want
there to be no ending
but there must be, just
as there had to be a beginning
and you had no say about that.
Endings are hard, they remind you
of small deaths, all but one,
but each is also a birth of sorts,
and like you know, they arise
and you have no say about them.
These few lines will
soon enough draw to an end
although that may be one
you don’t so much mind.
But as you put them away
they are the beginning of a thought
you never imagined would arise.

February 21, 2019

ARMAGEDDON

There are a group of them
who stare at the sky
knowing it is coming
launched on its course
at the beginning of time
which has no beginning.
Some say it will be soon
others are less certain when
but all accept without question
its inevitability, and wonder
what will remain in its
aftermath, seas evaporated,
continents blotted, it is easy
I tell them, there will be
a freaking big mess
for the roaches to clean up.

First Appeared in Pandaloon, 1996.

October 5, 2018

COSMOLOGY

Our purpose is to understand
and then explain
the order of the Universe:
the logic of the neat array of stars
from our centrally located
observation deck, the galaxies
as so many fractals seeking
to hide their organization.
We have no ability to control
and lack the mechanisms
to make all but the most minute
adjustments and then as if
to energize a stray electron
into a higher energy state.
We would like to foretell
but we have no essential premise
on which to erect our framework
just a cornerstone unwilling
to settle in place or time.
We can only recount
what we have learned
cautious that we miss
only events of lesser importance
even if they are prehistory
long before they occur.
Before the beginning
was the beginning.

Published in the May 2004 issue of Vent
October 20, 2017

4/4 TIME

Musicians have a clock
that runs on its own time
and all that is constant
is the beat, in four
second increments.
They start, they say,
when the music
is ready, never before
and music is fickle:
tonight it wanted to sit
off stage and rest
an hour, another night
it begins precisely
as advertised
and it ends, always
and invariably,
after the last note
plays itself.

September 28, 2017

COUPLING

 

He asks when
as if it were all
a matter of timing
as if the immediacy
or lack of it
somehow really mattered.

She would never ask that
but would want
to know who.
She’s far too polite
to ever ask why
preferring to see the scene
in the mind’s eye
allowing a thin
veil of mystery.

Each wants to know
how the other found out
though neither has
the slightest idea
where this all began.