The go-between climbs a pole
to touch that slippery knowledge
that lets one domain interfere with another
Plunges to depths where
submarines would collapse like accordions
Performing a hybrid of church and circus
or some form of excavation:
More than the sum of its parts,
less than the limit of stiff-upper-lip.
If this were anything but literature,
the tonic effects of an afternoon off
could shatter at any time.
Fortune appears like a river
that bursts now and then from its banks,
laying waste to all in its path.
But when the river is not in flood
are we not capable of taking precautions,
asks Machiavelli, so next time it rises
its force will not be so destructive?
Luminous visitations,
The pleasures of order and roots:
Doomed to shipwreck are those
Who try to cross the rivers of fear
On such poor rafts as these.
Everything in Nature, says Santayana
(seeming more wistful than bitter)
is in its different facets
either lyrical, comic or tragic.
Which might make sense
if we didn’t have bodies.
In a system based on relation
the road is cobbled with metaphors
coming into being.
With old pots one makes the best soup.