A dead leaf skitters
on a perfect lawn
Bolted off-limits as the dead
derricks of old
Pat Robertson,
Now Gold Coast Fence,
unmolested by requests,
separates the tars
From phosphorus uppers.
II.
Every person you meet
is a nudge away
from Enlightenment,
Totally getting it, and barely
in the trance that makes
the thoughts they think
A moving mirror that takes her
away from us, by which
I mean myself only.
They say it's a process
of more lucid dreams
by daylight
Across the entire populace
-- in time, they say,
and slowly deliver
The glue unhooked
from the envelope,
the parcel pulled out
And its contents titivated
by the closest thing we have
to collective,
These councils in white
with sleeves of gold
and hatred
Who make the decisions
you think you
thought of
But the wave came and went
and left you to lean on
this gravity vice
Where the stone's not even
hollow, the fumes
not even seen.
We have woken up
no more firmly
than in not taking this
World at its word anymore,
as we would a dragonfly
on the lake at firebug light,
The white unmistakable
spoken on everyone's lips
in silence
As the new sun
passes the dead towers,
skirts the tar.
