for Charles Simic
It’s not too difficult
being a human and a horse -
being neither one thing
nor the other or both
simultaneously
for a few millennia;
Or being a comet
or asteroid mistaken
for a moon, sitting in
a coma or your dirty trail
of dust, deciding whether
to be ice or water.
It’s like lying on one’s back
trying to read the tear
in the ceiling
or learning the soft shoe shuffle
with one wrist handcuffed
to a doorknob
in a deserted building
in a district scheduled
for demolition;
Or being the ‘Great
‘Who-Was-He’ in a
school for escape
artists that never had enough
students to convene;
Or noticing the trees
were all uncannily badly painted
or having the theatrical backdrop
of a flickering galaxy
suddenly whipped away
from you as you are
still frantically
trying to remember your lines.
(Note: Chiron: in mythology - the wisest of centaurs. In astronomy, a hybrid comet named after the centaur.)
David Annwn’s fourteenth book of poetry is Wonder-rig , a collaboration with Lee Duggan and Nigel Bird published by KFS last year. David has worked extensively with calligrapher, Thomas Ingmire. Their work can be found throughout the InterNet.