NewRisingSun

Land of the New Rising Sun

Today a cratered rainbow
ascends with ragged beam
from a cup of morning coffee
into later afternoon.

The day is spent preparing
for a secular advent which
may well fall shy of
advertised proportions.

Seven days a-sail or a-spin,
however traveled, now at last
the world lies uncreate,
transparent to the core.

The vacation, hardly begun,
is over now. As the axis
of our fantasy dissolves,
we slowly wave in rhythm.

Waving at a passing raft
where reflections of ourselves
wave back a tear stained flag
hung from a rope of onions.

Waving to the flippers of
seven silver silkies who
have tracked our wake all day,
now going separate ways.

Waving to children with gold
eyes upon a seaside carousel
who persue one another in
stationary joy with screams of laughter.

Waving at a superior one step epoxy,
good for bonding stainless steel to water.
Good for gluing the shoreline to the sea.

Waving at an Italian
organ grinder in a skip.
His ape returns our wave
with his glass beaded cap.

Waving at a public nuisance
spraypainting the rainbow and
to seagulls circling counter to the
spinning wake of the Marie Helena.

Waving to a dark steamer,
dim even by unclouded sun.
Something waves back, or
perhaps it is a curtain.

Waving to the crucified
who lifts a finger in reply.
Waving to a blue, blue island which
was once our heart's desire.

Waving to a solitary gunman,
whose eye, magnified, winks
from the crosshair sight
trained in our midst.

Waving to an inflatable giraffe
bearing a poet in beret and shades
reciting, beating holy hell
out of a conga drum.

Waving to a foiled villain,
cloak and tophat streaming,
hissing as he twirls the points
of his elaborate mustache.

Waving, waving, waving
at a lei of golden blossoms
suspended in mid air,
poised in indecision.

When we'd finished waving,
we danced to the creak of
an iron gate; danced to the clank
of the lid upon a boiling kettle.

We danced to the squeek of
chalk upon a blackboard,
breathing the sweet powder
of pounded erasers.

We danced to the whistle of
a carpenter stripping paint
and to the horns and sirens
of a falsified alarm.

We danced to the deep groan
of shifting continental plates
and to the muffled notes of
a jukebox in a hurricane.

We danced to the whine
of a dentist's drill and
the crunch of steps in
fresh powdery snow.

We danced to the howl of
a spook from out a watery grave
and to the slither of its
slimey seaweed chains.

We danced in white and
scarlet ephods
on the ashes of our Teraphim.

We danced to the rippling cadence
of a thousand string guitar;
the deck awash in music, with
treble clefs of foam conducting.

We danced to the keen whine
of selective devastation, to a
world innocent of roses groaning
beneath a deep bowed bass.

We danced to the lullaby wail
of one almost but never quite
entirely present whom we have
loved but cannot fathom.

We danced upon logs of teak,
mahogany, ironwood and ebony.
The visor of the sky opened at perihelion
spreading to each horizon.

And when we'd finished dancing,
we broke down and wept.

We wept for crimson laces
in green leather boots.
We wept at a full ketch
of sardines and at the
pipe smoke of three fishermen
in animated conversation.

We wept because it so
rarely rains in dreams.
Our tears were fat, warm
and blue by reflected sky.

We wept for a three bar
jackpot in a ten cent
one armed bandit spitting
dimes and ringing bells.

We wept forlorn, for long,
forever; caught our tears
in tiny crystal bottles
with blue glass stopples.

As we continued weeping,
our raft began to spin,
faster, faster, blurring like
a pinwheel in a hurricane.
We hold, we slip, we slide
as the Marie Helena
discharges passengers by
centripetal force.

Goodbye! we cry to one another.
Forgive these imperfections,
these tears of self pity and
these infinite regressions.

Some hold hands, some fly
off seperately, some by
fours and threes to the
place in which they land.

Some land in a haystack
in mid-summer Somerset.
Some land in boxcars
rattling through the Klondike.

Some land in covered wagons
moving west, some land in
a borax mine amidst the
clatter of mule teams.

Some fall down chimneys
on Christmas eve,
brush the soot from
scarlet suits and chuckle.

Some fall breathless onto
a seaside carousel
among the gold eyed children
chasing one another endlessly.

Some fall on the desert
and crawl across the sand
into a promising mirage
that speaks of water.

Some, or none, or is it one?
land upon a blue island. beneath
white clouds against blue sky
rising from blue sea.

After a week's unfolding
many things have changed.
It is time now to
change them back again.

It is still true, in spite of
the flight of the Marie Helena,
still true, that it rarely,
very rarely, rains in dreams.