Don't Keep Moving

A Poem on Unhubris

Perhaps one thought can save an atom
or on chance at least move it a foot
but then chance is no thing
so what have we gathered
in scientif bathrooms
where beakers don’t stink?

Two storms they can sneak up
with neither conspiring
and wind could sing night songs
with no man to hear

and ghosts might lack quarter
or sheets spared from dark room
and photograph paper
might turn sticky as flies

since thoughts float like earthworm
and fish climb our labors
and boss things stare at paychecks
and smart kings dissect bombs

yet we are all leaders
with hats and shirts matching
and souls like a beacon
reflecting up shame

since upstretched we’re little
and bent low we cloudcling
and weather does accommodate
these threats in one’s brain

we sing a bit at chamber
and close lids at nightdrop
we fear mismatched numbers
and pick toes like great apes

and just one digwork lingers
like starform or artwork
it haunts through our pore waves
it nibbles out our nose
it hunkers for a winter spell
it clambers at a scold from light
it wiggles when it’s talked about
it dances in the rain

and monkeys stare at us a while
reminding truths we rarely knew
for they like trees do walk erect
though when at play do dip like rubber

and we are braced with people selections
and choosings between waters
and lands that once met
with tonguetalk spilt like much paint
flowing down to gorgeous streams
full of phantom mesmerglaze
like werewolfs on a maid

and with a gun we shoot that moon
and spray at things quite old and flat
round as oceans and teacup rings
and wide as sailor’s hips

we ask the night that will not speak
we near the cliffs that bore our minds
we stare at children sicker still
and pretend they’re not our kin

and math it barks all over us
like bigger danes and reckrobbed skies
and we play smart and still once more
and shake off all our scent

to boast we build a taller thing
and angels push us back with ire
and beasts they stare with saddened eyes
at kings caked in their poo

and rectors wrack our wrinkled brows
and force the light into our thought
and pain it comes like weaver’s heat
and rain it drops like ice

and grateful we commence anew
with Einstein’s head and broken skin
and pray to things we never served
and hope for hours to steal

but science it is a brutal rage
misnamed it climbs an ancient chain
and stymied with a grip on hell
too smart to know its end

but when could tail begin to taste
of what the mouth had bit from source
and who would bear the force of gale
to stand unmet in time

for he would have to risk to cease
who met the night and open flame
to peer with eyes through ancient cave
to see the frame of all

thus stones and spin could thence depart
unawares how string had gid their path
and stronger meat than metal or love
could wretch the whole thing true

for sickness of life must turn that river
if those alive have curved so wrong
and smarter things must headhide like gawkbirds
and flap their wings like landlocked steed

and babes confess their frailty and diapers
and maids reply with the echo of Ede
and men renew the borders of lawdom
and uncle cry forth from those crushed by girth

and then might molecule and things quite smaller
dip their stride and lock on orb
look at gravity and the rules of science
and say “wait a moment, that fellow … he blinked”.