January 10, 2006

It's January 10, 2006
Feels more like March
as the sun is warm
the sky is blue and people
joyful
as they move, unhurriedly
through the streets

Upon seeking alternative route
to Old Port office
I cast a gaze deep into Casco Bay
and see the slivers of light
dancing atop wind-brushed brine
like minnows in a bait bin ;

This scene once was
Penobscot Bay, as viewed
from Camden Hills
when stone-eyed and back-packed
I snowshoed up the steep slope,
with beard Frost-ed
with breath-gusts -- resembling then
the pinebows that overtake the birches
with the achievement of altitude ;

But now the brick mason's mechanical saw
shrieks through crooked Old Port streets
as art galleries wipe the sleep
from their sleepy sleepy brows, hoping
today is the day they'll be worth their rent

Bean-pole grimace of Conn.-bred Irish Pub owner
saunters across icy asphalt - his ass still tender
from the previous night's pounding -
His eyes -- precious heirlooms
of hoodlums and poets - at least - should be ...

Impostors outdo genuine Gems
beneath a cloak and disguise ...

Maniacal magistrates of the law park
illegally
then waddle to donut paradise where
accomplices await - mistress of the streets
metermaids looking for a quick warmup
before going home to their husbands

That Great Eye sees all of this
from the crows nest of solitude :
Great Roving Bark that is rooted
All-Seeing but blind to particulars!

The Great Eye sees all of this
like the moon over-sees the sea, monitoring
the allegiance of the tide, seducing
Proserpine with Pheobe's lesbian musings!

The Great Eye sees the bleakest hours
in the brightest days
unable to separate Beauty from the beast!
Poetry from the slang!
Beggar from the Aristocrat!
Harlot from the queen!

The Great Eye wants no more reason!
No more Apollonian insights! No more
sculptors erecting boundaries
and illusion wrapped
in aesthetic delight!

Great Eye wants no more bosom of kindness!
Kindness of Etheral Plains - Kindness of Vision
Has used too much already - Wanting no more ;

A hard describe is the certitude
with which the hand clasps the bottle
with anticipatory look in the eye
like spying Virgin Mary, slipping
out of her robe, through a chink in the door
in the head-pounding afternoon
still thirsty for experience,
still thirsty for enlightenment . . .