sw00310v-7.poem5

Venturings


        [ "Humankind" is the final poem in my
          unpublished 1985 Teasings chapbook,
          and it was written in 1985 
          specifically for that chapbook. ]

"Humankind"


              I
am the future
of poetry;
   the present,
   the past.

In a bronze box
I
rattle
   the souls
   of your eyes.

         Seas
   bow
before my approach.

   Even the stars,
laughing so hard
   they shake
         tears of fire
   down the face of time,
wait on me.

               And the gods?
Be it they, or
none, or
         a mighty One,
               beckon me--
                  my dreams--
while the soots of death
               swirl & grind.

So long as I am
           I am limitless,
though I reach no end,
         though the grandest
      of my computations
crumbles at
   the screak of a bird,
   though the right front tire
            of my Subaru
      squirts the guts
   of a hapless cat
at the heart of a child.

-
Brian A. J. Salchert