Dave Shortt
BORDERLINES (BORDERLANDS)
a solid mass of cyclonic clouds
pinwheels just off the coast,
caught in a satellite image
as it first touches littoral populations,
leaving behind it somewhere
the eye of Poseidon
that watched reputed Odysseus
in that age the baby
hanging from the mother's breast,
the baby & the mother & the other
things which begin turning into
respective lessons of loss
& gain, just before
a time & place are born
spellbound with consciousness,
& immortality comes face to face
with Andromeda
then the celibate breaks
from the mother, drawn
by Lady Liberty's coveted beauty:
but every woman is Her surrogate,
where equally every man might
consummate his choice, unless
from the hearth of Her sanctity
She withdraws into sovereignty
included in the latest poll
is the river,
inclusive of the choice to immigrate
is a menstrual moon,
inclusionary to illusions of wealth & walls
is a heron rising in mercy,
while a path-like tangent to a surveyed sphere
races briefly into sight
the pine are high-rises
with their terminal antennae,
the river is all the eyes noticing it, flowing
blue, green, or gray:
swirling along they look for the source
of how this powerful tear
will exchange itself again
for the blood of all the valleys
sunlight makes the needles glisten,
surpluses of sugar frost the air
& arms that caress it like cake,
caterpillars put up their tents
in comfort in the crotches,
insulin's injected into
unsweetened spleens & knees
fractals of a distant chainsaw
whine with a baby's future cursing
or moan with a family's
obsessed gentleness, sawdust
is blown around & settles like
the homeless whose warmth is only
sunlight through & through
something silhouetted along the riverbank
isn't after all one of the natives, meditating
on whether to cross over,
nor a fisherman in camo
frozen near the end of a fish's mouth:
how long will the forest continue
showing off its sticks in metaphysics,
a leaf's thickness above a secret desert?
friends, when the time comes,
telecommunication may wade through
the soul-tracks on their way
to further entertainment
of our massless humor:
but before they're reckoned or not reckoned
to return, goodbye
to that form of gratuitous love whose
gladiatorial absurdity pounded
all transcending developments
into dumbness, such love
as from then on will be cut off
under the changing conditions
after a last breaking-up conversation, a telepathy
anticipating an offer of elopement
with another Iphigenia, a Perpetua, there
in the dwindling strength of the roots
of gingko biloba
& gotu kola
a solid mass of cyclonic clouds
pinwheels just off the coast,
caught in a satellite image
as it first touches littoral populations,
leaving behind it somewhere
the eye of Poseidon
that watched reputed Odysseus
in that age the baby
hanging from the mother's breast,
the baby & the mother & the other
things which begin turning into
respective lessons of loss
& gain, just before
a time & place are born
spellbound with consciousness,
& immortality comes face to face
with Andromeda
then the celibate breaks
from the mother, drawn
by Lady Liberty's coveted beauty:
but every woman is Her surrogate,
where equally every man might
consummate his choice, unless
from the hearth of Her sanctity
She withdraws into sovereignty
included in the latest poll
is the river,
inclusive of the choice to immigrate
is a menstrual moon,
inclusionary to illusions of wealth & walls
is a heron rising in mercy,
while a path-like tangent to a surveyed sphere
races briefly into sight
the pine are high-rises
with their terminal antennae,
the river is all the eyes noticing it, flowing
blue, green, or gray:
swirling along they look for the source
of how this powerful tear
will exchange itself again
for the blood of all the valleys
sunlight makes the needles glisten,
surpluses of sugar frost the air
& arms that caress it like cake,
caterpillars put up their tents
in comfort in the crotches,
insulin's injected into
unsweetened spleens & knees
fractals of a distant chainsaw
whine with a baby's future cursing
or moan with a family's
obsessed gentleness, sawdust
is blown around & settles like
the homeless whose warmth is only
sunlight through & through
something silhouetted along the riverbank
isn't after all one of the natives, meditating
on whether to cross over,
nor a fisherman in camo
frozen near the end of a fish's mouth:
how long will the forest continue
showing off its sticks in metaphysics,
a leaf's thickness above a secret desert?
friends, when the time comes,
telecommunication may wade through
the soul-tracks on their way
to further entertainment
of our massless humor:
but before they're reckoned or not reckoned
to return, goodbye
to that form of gratuitous love whose
gladiatorial absurdity pounded
all transcending developments
into dumbness, such love
as from then on will be cut off
under the changing conditions
after a last breaking-up conversation, a telepathy
anticipating an offer of elopement
with another Iphigenia, a Perpetua, there
in the dwindling strength of the roots
of gingko biloba
& gotu kola
Copyright © Dave Shortt 2017
Dave Shortt is a longtime writer (American) whose work has appeared over the years in several online and print venues, including nth position, Blackbox Manifold, Contra Equus Niveus, Surrealist Star Clustered Illuminations, Sugar Mule, The Journal and Poetry Salzburg Review.
