Image Credit: Henry Taylor, Rock It, (2008). 5 cardboard boxes (premium malt boxes), acrylic on foam mannequin head, wood) 36″ x 12″ x 80 1/2″.
© Henry Taylor
Ruckus squawking overhead, each moment
seagulls grousing as if the world were theirs.
Somewhat out of sorts, a casual form
slogs along the strand gazing at sky’s noise,
a forceful finger lifted to the din,
his gruff deliberate bark snarling BASTA!
Awkward, slightly corpulent, no longer
quickly springing up to his height’s full reach,
a tugboat more or less, once a sleek sloop
skimming tooth and jowl against every yacht.
Gracious lean days lost, only lamb and beef
accrue his appetite’s fond attention.
War’s depravity, slaughter’s raw heartache,
Hell’s obliteration now hell-to-pay:
a rotted anise seed stuck in bad gums
compromising what seemed excessive health.
Beneath clamorous gulls now mocking him,
fantasy’s transport fills his ample mind.
Was it Ananke’s vengeful wish that clamped
despair upon his inner landscape’s cheer?
Desolate, sad plodding acrid salt air,
nothing to say, no one there to speak to,
bitter breeze becomes acute aggression,
sunlight turned against itself, burnt yellow
curdled to somber orange, freedom’s uplift
plunged like sullen surf, volcanic thunder
bearing down as rogue tsunamis clashing
destroy what little time he feels is left.
Within such indigo impossibles
sober redolence maintains its long hold.
No small thing to suffer what took decades
to disavow, time has plans of its own.
Who is that stern woman he often fled,
a shrew he did not shake, his worst error.
Thoughts circle where his mind, once diligent,
endures lassitude’s tormenting anguish.
Dauntless still, or merely stubborn, resolved
to cede himself to Athens, he pauses.
Strange that cacophonous clatter dissolves,
thought excavating hope’s imprisonment.
Soon he’ll climb the futile Acropolis,
slabs ascending, arches brooding for his
return to learn the fate of blunt wisdom,
nothing ordinary there awaiting.
Blithe, righteously perverse, he’ll take it all
in stride knowing what few if any glean,
fate’s silent homage to human failure,
stupidity’s grand majestic forays,
pride ballooned like fever claiming courage,
political discourse lacking remorse,
fools charmed by fools, those more foolish charming
warriors, statesmen, leaders, each one bankrupt
poisoning civil peace, human hope, health’s
fragile grip on sanity’s feeble strength.
Calm, at last resigned to public voices
devouring his mute daimon’s brilliant surd,
he relents to their collaboration . . .
Socrates’s agile consciousness alone.
