Past Tense
Ubi sunt, huh? About last year’s snowfalls:
we who still shovel remember each one,
and, since past means only memory
which wise advice describes as a room
of sorts where we should neither dwell
nor shut the door, that’s where snow goes,
but, to not be cute, the French poet thug
seemed to be telling some kind of Lord
that all the cruelly beautiful women
he listed were gone, as in dead is dead,
which back then was a riskier opinion
to bruit about, while now we just shrug off
that gloom like we got used to the bomb
ending the world to work on ignoring
the big heating, like frogs adjust to water
brought to a slow boil, and in that sense,
that is if you look at it that way, we agree
with Villon before they hung him
that Lord-like people should quit asking
questions all the time when yesteryear’s
snow, if you want to talk slanted like that,
is in a room where all that’s ever been
is all jumbled together in timeless time,
and the real questions are the old questions
about the rules in our girlfriend’s bedroom:
was a toe on the floor as good as a foot,
and could a crack be an open door?
we who still shovel remember each one,
and, since past means only memory
which wise advice describes as a room
of sorts where we should neither dwell
nor shut the door, that’s where snow goes,
but, to not be cute, the French poet thug
seemed to be telling some kind of Lord
that all the cruelly beautiful women
he listed were gone, as in dead is dead,
which back then was a riskier opinion
to bruit about, while now we just shrug off
that gloom like we got used to the bomb
ending the world to work on ignoring
the big heating, like frogs adjust to water
brought to a slow boil, and in that sense,
that is if you look at it that way, we agree
with Villon before they hung him
that Lord-like people should quit asking
questions all the time when yesteryear’s
snow, if you want to talk slanted like that,
is in a room where all that’s ever been
is all jumbled together in timeless time,
and the real questions are the old questions
about the rules in our girlfriend’s bedroom:
was a toe on the floor as good as a foot,
and could a crack be an open door?
