Night Owl

(St. John's College, Annapolis; February 2009, early am; reading Kant)

It’s not all so easy
as you would like,

I suppose.

You are not so graceful as you dreamed you would be;
monuments do not tumble from their perches before you
as you walk by.

But it’s fine, you know, it’s okay.
And so I’ll forgive it,

if you can.


And isn’t it that
the winter sky sticks to your insides
like a pasty shroud,
and there’s not much that you can do?
Like being underwater-
struggling only makes it worse.

Isn’t it that...
People live at the end of long tunnels this time of year;
you shout at them down those god-awful tubes--
receiving vague responses--but not to the thing you meant to say
...isn’t it just that way?


You see:

I am 4 am lucid--my chin wags at noon;
I am conquered and stupid--my words move too soon.
If I look when I leap
I am usual, cheap,
but I get me in trouble from my toes to my stubble,
start seeing in double while I sift through the rubble,
and the fine mess I make
seems like all I can take,
still I’m carried along like a sad little tune

...

Outside
bus rides
concrete lullabies
the hard, hard soft
like tenement lofts
And the lies: soft, wet,
making off-track bets,
and all the petals falling off of all the flowers in the northern hemisphere:
they all land all at once in my distracted ears.
But who writes about flowers
anymore
anyway?


Still...

it’s
not all so hard
as it seems sometimes.

In fact,

when the strike of the light
is just right
I swear
you
are right next to me;
as close to me as anything can be.

So I clutch the air inside of myself,
hold it there
and I wait...

Because maybe god will show up this time
(and me in these old shoes).
I might not know what he looked like, should he appear
maybe she looks just like you sitting there:
eyes weary-far, and your head tipped just so...

Just exactly as graceful as I dreamed you would be
God-awful real and right next to me.

And my busted up places
let in little traces
of curious lights
that come down late at night,
reference the summer and get me to spring,
and it strikes me that we are just full of such things.
But to smear it with words
seems obtuse and absurd,
so I trip on my muse
and I struggle and lose--
but still I must inquire, and still I must impugn!
For I am 4 am lucid; my chin wags at noon