Life
is so big. Eyelash in the salad. Aldebaran
light-years to the right
of the margaritas.
Five hundred thousand
new “jobless claims.” Quotes. Was Bonaparte a fool
or a genius? Yes.
Rates of currency exchange, thermal exchange,
chromosomal exchange. I begin
to fill up, as if I’m a glass
and the world is water, is rain
is storm. Backfire
I think is gunfire and gunfire
I’m sure is close.
The feeling that mysticism
is the only way to be polite, that the stick
fetches the dog. While I was masturbating,
more rainforest
disappeared. The feeling the sun is saying
do something.
The feeling it’s impossible
to know what to do. So there I was:
planting bulbs
for a greensudden spring.
dialing by congresswoman, blushing,
hanging up, redialing,
rededicating myself
to gestures, walking right up to the sky
and asking it please
to stay.
The slog
the trudge,
pushing the boulder the pie-chart the petition
up the mountain. Save the whales,
the decibels,
the Earth,
the me. When I thought of life
as climbing the shadow of a tree,
I climbed.
When I thought of life
as a race between words
for empty and words for full,
I was at the end of this poem.
-Bob Hicok
