Interior Lighting

I'm sending this to you
In leaps and staggers, in the beaten-down
Remorse code of the heart.

But no more opulent apologies, no more
Debauches in the dim confessional—
I hate the arrogance of truth.

Here, in the lost month of February,
Leftover snow and raw coughs
Under the amniotic reveries of light,

It's a constant wonder to me
I'm not dead already, like a stuffed Angora
With a Goodyear wrapped around it.

You won't find God by theodolite,
Or a blizzard of angels
Sweeping eastward on the weather map.

There's only the mind immediate
Among the running shadows, the mind shining with
The unnecessary beauty of the bottlefly,

A swarm of ruminations on the real.
Whatever you call me now—
Jack of few trades, rickshaw boy

For the tourists of unnatural philosophy,
Sly ambassador
To the marble halls of hell—

You must admit
I'm no stranger rattling on
Like a field of nervous cornshucks,

But a cousin of
The feuds and scruples trapped inside you,
Bulging at the belt.

You know the mission of the trees—
To heal their hurt and
Stand voluptuous against the wind.

What April do you seek
Beneath the stubborn ice, what
Sweet alohas of the soul?

I'm not sending next-day notes
To a scented dowager, or droning on above
Obsequious pencils in a lecture hall.

Nothing clears the dark away
Like a pipe bomb and a monkey wrench.
And if there's damage done,

Where's the crime in that,
When the squalls of inner limit
Come to calm?

Copyright © 2004 Elton Glaser All rights reserved
from Crab Orchard Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission