TRAFFIC

in the vacant noise that comes from modern cars
in the exuberant silence of reincarnated classics
in the aimless, yet fluid, parade of pedestrians
in the hurried corral of the airports

in the nailbitten vigil for a bus that’ll never come

all the sad strata of transportation
is just a dragging home of groceries
like Atlas lifting eighteen pounds of cat food
like Ants that have a reason to go on

i persist for a different power
it has something to do with the dancing of planets
love, like gravity, keeps us circling each other
with or without consummation
it's about my mass, and your mass
and his mass
and hers

we can close our eyes, but our orbits are set
but though fate wears this hood
freedom is born in interpretation
in spite of all the bloody misunderstandings
the placenta of tears and raised voices

the bright light at the end of the canal is God.

so we exit the vehicle, unsheath a cigarette
summon an inner fire
and begin the algebra of emotional life

at the moment when one light has turned from amber,
and the other is poised to turn green,
all men are outlaws
barefoot and shirtless and without service
at the intersection of doubt and decision

we must act at that moment or be trampled
by the steaming elephants of a world
that spins without mercy
while we, the poets, look on in horror.

history's not always written by the winners
just ask poor Pyrrhus
or Pilate
ask the martyrs of insatiable Art
who died without the world watching
but whose self-mutilation won fame
and who joined the ranks of the hooded
and are remembered
as the interpreters
as the astronomers of the heart.