Spasmodically the gears shift toward green,
The refugees huddle around their electricity
As genius is wrenched, put to the unusual
Circumstance of war.

Flash pan of drained oil and the wreckage of pieces
Soaked in soapy water.
Mind bent to believe naught but the elusive,
The dragnet of happiness ill fitted to the trawler bumping
The bottom with its chain link appendage.

Why should today be any different,
Why collect raiment and threads from the dead
But for us, isolated, partially immune, bundled up,
Closeted like mummies in the store of clothes,
The dark and the cold of Ukraine and her shelter,
Frayed against barbarity.

We can’t presume too much but we know,
Slow tempest of the cold,
That age settles out as nothing dried, mashed,
Made into sheets of lineament
As coverings for dug holes against the snow.

The futility, utility of writing.
I shouldn’t have peed on myself
But age and cancer make uneven demands.
Even the sumptuous breakfast is underwater
As the economy of the Southern Hemisphere falls
Into the slag by mines of the river.
The mind of the river, the gasp mouth of fish and gills
Polluted, in the air, on the bank.

The futility / utility of feeling, as about in the mud bottom
Of the cat fish, junk fish survivor.
The best of us and the worst of us,
Jowl by jowl as in a glass cabinet of curios for examination.
We never measure up.
We flounder at love’s window sill.

Looking in? looking out?
Flabbergasted at the weight we have put on,
The slow motion of our legs cheeky and cold underwater
Trying to move and exercise.
It is an effort of futility / utility to love someone.
Selves in the way like traffic or lines of people
As if cities were all there ever were.

Tired tigers pacing, growing up hungry on dreams.
Yanking on not being ourselves anymore,
No tigers, no leash, no line but soon
The bottom finds, and her way of negation is superfluous,
Unnecessary, no longer useful to us.
We have to get together.
The dangling referent be damned.
We are hungry. The lines are long.

Spoils bleed congealed as jello, napalm, pudding.
“Line up the prisoners… Let us go then you and I”…
Let us make peace.
Numen of the feminine.
Atman of Alma,
Pillow of saturation,
Maturation of the green lemons to more of a yellow.
It is something we can all taste.
The cold days are the best for tasting.

The closet is no longer necessary to hold your clothes.
The famine is in the horn of the twisted cornucopia,
Of Africa and her slight, slim speed over the land.
Sweet tea in a tent on a cushion.
The animals are also about to feed.
We almost forget what we came for.

Almost remembered that all is lost and lost again
In the way of empire and maneuvering the people.
Quetzalcoatl and the demand of fortress America
And the sacrifice of owl and vole
To the stone keep of hearts and ants
And the jungle trail of leaves moving waters round
And around the people home again,
Turning the springs of perception to action
With sky Gods and Venus – hot in her volcanic cloak.
There is no home but home,
No lavender balm able to solve the running blood of the severed one,
Both feather and crocodile,
Uncle to the weather North, the sun East
And the neighborhood feels small.

Small is not the case.
Old barely scratches the endowment.
Tough days on the language line
Swapping Swahili and Greek as
Arabic to prideful lost Latin,
Cousin to the Aramaic and Han, sun and Sanskrit.
All go lost in the split as a river caught in the sand
And when the life blood is gone from humanity,
Pale as bone, alone,
Then tell us how it used to be at breakfast
Warm as tea, toast and jam.
Maybe ham – good pig,
Proscription made easy as tax.

By Rolf Stavig,
12/23/2022