(Happy Birthday To Me)
We may start with some
Far-fetched heroic vision or shining sculpture,
A kingly sword stuck into a stone perhaps,
But the images are only sparkling ice that momentarily ennoble
Some facile dirty-faced kid’s frosted birthday cake—
It gleams and melts, it cuts both ways
For both the artist and his art—
First too sharp and then too cold,
First cutting you, then cutting me,
Whatever it happens that we don’t like
Will happen on this day.
Now traces and shards of steel and ice we’ve known so long
Find too many candles on the cake for such a kid,
I confess; they heat and melt both the pretty icing and the ice,
And something hasty, lightning-fast, shoots across our wiring
And phases out these networks of neurons and nerves
That used to let us feel this celebration,
But now explodes and leaves an awful mess.
And so we deftly watch ourselves—
As cold or bleak as Lazarus,
Coming from the grave or going there—
Get rubbed clean of cake and drink, then dusted off
By some sweet Genie from the past grown harsh and thin.
What’s that lady doing here at all, I ask—
I said it’s my birthday!
More, I wonder if such a lapsed old pony trick or doggie fix
As I imagine would even work these days?
It would be a wonder
If one of those old queens of dead certainty
Should return with her guns drawn to the scene of the crime,
Alive with angst and able to anger me still,
Wearing skirts of unwed circumstance
In shades of unfettered royal blue and rust.
It’s many myths and mists since they’ve been gone.
No one to speak of or none I can recall
Ever came round asking about those mysterious souls
Or telling the last of their tale, if there is one,
To this bent and ragged rhymist.
It’s as if they are dead
And have always been dead.
Maybe I suspected otherwise at times—
I did hear secondhand rumors once—
But I’ve kept that opinion to myself.
What’s the point of showing everyone
The proof that I’m crazy like they said
Or that I’m crazier than they are?
rcs.
Current draft: 3/8/2010
Created on 12/22/2009 7:46 PM
We may start with some
Far-fetched heroic vision or shining sculpture,
A kingly sword stuck into a stone perhaps,
But the images are only sparkling ice that momentarily ennoble
Some facile dirty-faced kid’s frosted birthday cake—
It gleams and melts, it cuts both ways
For both the artist and his art—
First too sharp and then too cold,
First cutting you, then cutting me,
Whatever it happens that we don’t like
Will happen on this day.
Now traces and shards of steel and ice we’ve known so long
Find too many candles on the cake for such a kid,
I confess; they heat and melt both the pretty icing and the ice,
And something hasty, lightning-fast, shoots across our wiring
And phases out these networks of neurons and nerves
That used to let us feel this celebration,
But now explodes and leaves an awful mess.
And so we deftly watch ourselves—
As cold or bleak as Lazarus,
Coming from the grave or going there—
Get rubbed clean of cake and drink, then dusted off
By some sweet Genie from the past grown harsh and thin.
What’s that lady doing here at all, I ask—
I said it’s my birthday!
More, I wonder if such a lapsed old pony trick or doggie fix
As I imagine would even work these days?
It would be a wonder
If one of those old queens of dead certainty
Should return with her guns drawn to the scene of the crime,
Alive with angst and able to anger me still,
Wearing skirts of unwed circumstance
In shades of unfettered royal blue and rust.
It’s many myths and mists since they’ve been gone.
No one to speak of or none I can recall
Ever came round asking about those mysterious souls
Or telling the last of their tale, if there is one,
To this bent and ragged rhymist.
It’s as if they are dead
And have always been dead.
Maybe I suspected otherwise at times—
I did hear secondhand rumors once—
But I’ve kept that opinion to myself.
What’s the point of showing everyone
The proof that I’m crazy like they said
Or that I’m crazier than they are?
rcs.
Current draft: 3/8/2010
Created on 12/22/2009 7:46 PM
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