Passing the Bowl
It’s been three years to the day
Since I became like an uprooted
Cluster of grass on a cold current
Bumping in to riverbanks and logs
But never staying anywhere long.
In those days there were
Black shapes in the trees
Dark figures behind the trunks
No answers on the breeze
To the riddle told by the drunks.
Three years to the the day
Since I’d been evicted
Convicted of cosmic slob-hood
Spring sang a hymn to fire
And my blood was in flames :
Open twenty four hours
Hanging on a stem
Bending time in to pretzels
Moving down the Street
Lost in the glass and steel
I felt the punch
Before I saw it
Doubling me over
Like a postcard in the trashcan.
Lying on the pavement
I saw her return to the reeds
Where she shouted bug eyed
Behind the bus stop:
“Let us polish that nose
Let us relish those prose
That spot-lit all that kicking
And singing that’s been ringing
In your ears and mine.
making you the pregnant minded mendicant
The expectant extant
Whose mind won’t age
Even in the evening’s green skies
Stewed with lies
Racing overhead grinning
At The clouds like cars
Swelling like mars
And the one thunderhead
Made of lead raining bread
On the learned
Who walk in beautiful circles
Drawn by Raphael himself.
“And you say” :
That you are sad ,that you never saw
the sliver moon rise
Over lake laughingstock
But hey! Two faces are better than one
Now that you have risen to manager
“Away in a manger” of three packs a day
Load your soul in those boxes
Crank the vise down on your heart
It’s going to be a long day
Parked in perfect alignment
Now I remember what I wanted to say:
“There’s one more sip in the glass
One more surprise in the pass
Time to catch one more wave
Before passing the bowl at last.”
Joshua Kight. 4/7/14