Myth of Compass PointsProphet cactus, scratchy hill,
his arms outraised, poker faced,
as the sunset bleeds to death, and
my radiator steamsnakes breath.
OK, I'll talk, but only till it cools
back to my old running temp.
It's the crush of all the forward
and the backward, sir, happiness
then sadness, the craving and
the punishment, contentment real
as a zipstruck match, sated
briefly as a shot up tank of gas.
Yet, there's this sense, queer
as the dark that fills a well,
of everything perfectly still,
movement that ever always was.
No here, no there. No days apart
from yesteryear, no nights alone
in the black fire and zealotry
of flesh and youth and suddenness,
action jelled dead in a sameness.
To each his missing grail, woman
or incalculable experience, and
we'll know it when we get there,
but on this spare Lorcan plane,
do I see it now, anywhere,
in this atmosphere moleculed
chance to doubt to knowledge?
Fairies neither kiss nor die.
Buddhas sit safe from love.
A shaman's lone torch lights
only action on the cave walls.
And me? I drive the desert
to meet Cochise in hunt,
or first prove fire, in faith
a man can travel beyond
the myth of compass points.
Because magic is forever,
while love is feet on fish, or
amoebas yearning to be frogs.
Crazier yet, this wait on love.
But, I'll take my sotted wind,
this scurrying from hope
to wild hope, the busyness
of our loud, shearing gears,
the lie of traveling east
to west, this frantic desert
plain, in great earth ache
for lightning, then the rain.
We move, lumbering beasts,
to something more like thought,
as if you could walk to memory.
I left the sand and scrub again
for pavement, my mag wheels
reeling in the whipflight roads,
still human as an old apple core.
© John Kilroy