to be invisible to ants scouting the bench’s eave
to have arrived at the place i am going
such pleasures as these
you will soon be knowing
understand why people watch a river
how one arrives in vehicles big and small
up to what they value
in the difference between hellish traffic
and heavenly bicycle path magic
i know why fishermen spend hours
in the midst of a morning lake
why golfers chase a ball to hit it farther
tee up
into eighteen holes all day long
i see tennis spectators, soccer fans,
hockey puckers and basketball suckers
living vicariously without lifting fingers
for anything but zippers
leaving the couch for nippers
every step along the way
engrossed with every breath i take
with moving objects getting attention
i quickly merge with that moment rush
then move on to forget it without a push
i follow the pixels on the screen
playing the same games every day
making new shapes from different angles
like Captain Pike, Steve Reeves and Hawking
without moving, mountains talking
like Einstein’s brain in formaldehyde
faster than the speed of light
as empty as a black hole
i know how it must feel
and meditate on the unreal
like the inner groove of Sargent Pepper
or Who’s Sell Out skipping mantra
record skipping mantra
record skipping mantra
record skipping mantra
i nudge my tone arm for awareness
the way my lover moves me
out of that familiar groove
to every song on every side
i have to do it, i cannot hide
children of the world have toys
possess and covert accumulations
but as sure as a diamond cuts through all
comic book heroes and Hollywood
become hollow as rotting wood
when the pen runs dry
i sit watching the river flow
when the end of the day arrives
i find my dusty red dream squeezed
somewhere north of the southerly breeze
June 16, 2018
www.readingsandridings.jimdo.comPurchase "Unnatural Beauty; Poems from the Han Riverside" here.
Copyright © 2018 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.
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