The face turning towards you,or turning away,
In the hour of judgment and sin;
Words like flipped coins spin through the air-
How will they fall?
All this is Normal,
The only normal you have ever known.
A kind of Swedish melancholy
Comes over me at times,
Pointing the way to a new catastrophe,
A further conundrum.
Life-the realm of the perishable-
Tutors the abandoned in aspects of failure,
As if to lead them to some final understanding,
Forever forestalled and withheld.
In my hand I clutch a serpent’s egg,
Stirring with fanged choices.
Is there mercy in the tropes of living
Or hideous attrition?
This life’s themes and symbols
Are my duty to ken.
The first death kills you long before
You feel the ground open.
On the shore of a distant memory,
I gaze out to the sea’s horizon
For a habitable island
Where treasure might hide.
I am still that stupid schoolboy,
Nervous and desperate to please...
Winter’s actors,seated before mirrors,
Apply their masks with resignation,
Condemned by hidden masters
To perform with skill and grace.
Scenes from Norse mythology
Are played out in offices and factories
And snow falls like applause on their heads.
Bravo! Encore! Take a bow!
To fall, to fall in and out of love,
To fall pregnant with the future
And fall for its tricks;
That will be me,then,
No longer altogether sure
Whether to call myself
Optimist or pessimist,
Or even what such categories mean.
My mind presents itself to me
Like Stockholm,built on islands
And waters,with wild archipelagoes
Stretching into the cold beyond.
One can but put one’s hand to the tiller
And sail as far as skill allows...
Out-spidered by my own mind,
I navigate amongst people,
All moving towards or away
From each other,in a game
Whose rules are somewhat unclear.
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