The State of Things

My life
It is written in an unknown script.
In rare moments, monthly and at midnight
I comprehend fragments of a line
Then it swirls away to chaos
Coffee and cream- too swift of an integration.
I yearn for delineation
The yin and yang,
Black and white demarcation
But once again
The old man wields his brush-
Stormy grey.

Rain drops have fallen
But they dry quickly
Ghostly ink blot artifacts of water
Transient fireworks etched in dust.
The earth is dry
A journalist's portrait of sun-crackled ground in Africa.

In this corridor of my restless world
A fitful wind blows
Gusts from a blinded Seraphim
Raging like a panicked bird
Against a window pane of heaven.
My history is a row of wine glasses.
Fate? A metal baseball bat swung by a pro
(each glass at impact freeze-framed in primitive animation
an explosion at the moment of ignition).

Segments of this beautiful life
(Buongiorno Principessa!)
Like separate eggshell china cups
Shatter in time to a karmic metronome
Go to pieces on the cobbles of my ground.
In this constant autumn
My careful piles of leaves disperse hourly
Under the burning trees of a purgatory
Mundane in its urbanity
I rake and rake eternally!

A poet prays for visions
For hieroglyphic portraits that define the soul,
Seeks a subtle music to raise the veil-
Blasts the brooding raven into drifting feathers
And reveals the balm of Gilead.

But on the steps of his house
Overlooking the street
He hears the churning of the factory
And smells its smoke.
He sips his cooling coffee
Watches a homeless man on his bicycle pedaling slow.

All is not lost-

Only my Rosetta stone.