84/365: my people

I contemplate the fifteen kinds of jerky -
two turkey and thirteen beef -
by the register at Walmart.

The blessings of far flung lands
burst into the aisles
and spill forth from end caps
and I wander amongst them
as I once did bookstores
(when there were bookstores)
considering the potential.
There is a book aisle at Walmart,
do not fear,
if you want to relive for forty feet of shelf space
what that other life was like.

This is a different kind of potential,
but not so different as the hipsters
would have you believe.

These are my people, I tell you.
They are dreamers dreaming dreams.
They are building castles in the sky
under which they hope to some day
put foundations.

They do not keep pace with you,
and they have not heard
of Henry David Thoreau and his project
to eat beans and drink water
and do nothing but sit by a pond,
so mock them.
But with their XXXL leopard print spandex
they too ride their scooters
to the beat of a drummer
you cannot hear.

82/365: just in case

My briefcase stowed in the hold,
I throw off
and drift into the stream of traffic
making my way down the canals
of my subdivision,
merging through the locks of lights
until I hit the big river highway.

I set my minivan on a southerly heading -
two hands on the wheel.
Red lights off the bow
and white coming past port -
the sun has yet to unfurl its rosy-fingered arms.

When questioned whether he was a merchant
or a pirate
Odysseus declared for the black flag.
There is no glory in being a merchant
and so I have my Jolly Roger in the glove box
and a bottle of rum under the lumbar-supporting seat
just in case I find the courage today
to drive on past my exit -
straight
into the winedark sea.

---

From Adam Smith's Lectures on Jurisprudence:

In a rude society nothing is honourable but war. In  the Odyssey, Ulysses is sometimes asked, by way of affront, whether he be a pirate or a merchant. At that time a merchant was reckoned odious and despicable; but a pirate or robber, as he was a man of military bravery, was treated with honour. We may observe that those principles of the human mind which are most beneficial to society, are by no means marked by nature as the most honourable.

81/365: Accidentally Talking with Oedipus

Oedipus will back me up on this -
you were destined to be reading these lines

right at this moment.

There are things you can fight,
but fate isn't one of them.

So I'm sorry if I've entered
your afternoon web surfing unexpectedly,
but it was preordained.

It's also true that
your choice of dinner this evening
is going to lead to an inevitable conclusion
some years from now.

Well, maybe not your dinner,
but something will.

See - Oedipus is nodding over there
the empty sockets of his eyes
directed away from us, but his ear
pointed straight at you.

He tells me it's not all bad,
this fate thing -

not

all.

***

audio: https://soundcloud.com/mbonica/accidentally-talking-with-oedipus

80/365: a conversation

we say a lot
or we say a little

words come forth and
do dances

or 

they come forth
and sit down, feet kicked up
on punctuation ottomans

hearing what isn't said
especially
when there is a riotous word gathering -

a joyous festival of word patrons -
or a staccato of angry word soldiers -
or just a subway platform of word commuters
pushing and shoving onto the next train -

it seems it might be important
to count the silences.

79/365: point of view

I was not born in Turkey
so it's hard for me to explain
why when we talk
I seem to be a whirl of bright cloth,
my twin blades flashing
in a turning
not unlike the chaotic turning of two suns offset
rising East-West as expected, but also almost West-East
if this were possible.

You, with your laconically complected articulation
that says little when we both listen closely
(ears bent in - observing)
You are closer to the British style
as if what you hold back
is not as obvious as what I put forward -
the tip of your rapier
pointed and waiting for the linear strike
through all of my words -
my words.

but my words are a cloud of meaning -
does the lightning speak any more clearly
than the sky?

78/365: Metis

I heart-see Metis on her river
like a woman in a canoe

while my eyes see the reflected dapple
of leaves and yellow sun

she is what runs through -
penetrating

her paddle dips below the calm surface
and I study her black hair -
like a waterfall cascading,
the sun, white repeating, in its strands

she turns to look at me on the bank

  eyes now blue as the hopeful sky
  eyes now grey as the storm
  eyes now green as the return of shore grass

my feet are bare
and I am suddenly conscious of the cool mud -
I look down and recognize my origins
as well as my ends.

I look up again
and she is gone

***

audio: https://soundcloud.com/mbonica/metis

* * *

from http://www.theoi.com/Nymphe/Okeanides.html:

THE OKEANIDES (or Oceanides) were three thousand goddess Nymphs who presided over the sources of earth's fresh-water, ranging from rainclouds to subterranean springs and fountains...Some of the Okeanides personified divine blessings, such as Metis (Wisdom), Klymene (Fame), Plouto (Wealth), Tykhe (Good Fortune), Telesto (Success), and Peitho (Persuasion). 

77/365: Iron

It is an age passing:

what men will we be,

when iron goes to join

bronze and gold?