Black Ice
So often is said, lately and soon, phrases
like snow is snow or whatever is whatever,
and a scrunched neck shrug that pulls arms up
with open palms completes the tautology,
a gesture of resignation meant to mean
acceptance, surrender to ineluctable rerum
naturam. Let’s move on, go forward, quit whining
and bare our necks with dignity to the sword
of Achilles, who himself must succumb someday
to a fate already written out somewhere.
Even in counterclockwise carnival whirl
wisdom always known yet rarely understood
can realize itself, even while your whole life,
as if it was a workshop novel, goes jerking by
in a series of random regrets like a runaway
slide show on a possessed projector,
all in mere seconds that, despite a well-known
cinematic sensation of slowed motion,
cannot in strict grammar of things be split.
Ice disguised as pavement. This is the rare moment
when what is really is what is. We can only hunch
our Gallic shrug and wait for what will be, will be.
O gods, if only your whimsy still made mortal destiny!
like snow is snow or whatever is whatever,
and a scrunched neck shrug that pulls arms up
with open palms completes the tautology,
a gesture of resignation meant to mean
acceptance, surrender to ineluctable rerum
naturam. Let’s move on, go forward, quit whining
and bare our necks with dignity to the sword
of Achilles, who himself must succumb someday
to a fate already written out somewhere.
Even in counterclockwise carnival whirl
wisdom always known yet rarely understood
can realize itself, even while your whole life,
as if it was a workshop novel, goes jerking by
in a series of random regrets like a runaway
slide show on a possessed projector,
all in mere seconds that, despite a well-known
cinematic sensation of slowed motion,
cannot in strict grammar of things be split.
Ice disguised as pavement. This is the rare moment
when what is really is what is. We can only hunch
our Gallic shrug and wait for what will be, will be.
O gods, if only your whimsy still made mortal destiny!
