WE CONSIDER THEM VERMIN--
these visitors
to the rotting corpses of our loved ones.
But what if
they’re only there to say
hello?

And when’s the last time you paid them a visit,
anyway?

Well let me tell you something:
the maggots and
worms
know where we're going.

Billions of years, billions of ancestors,
busily moving
through their lives in
isolated
blips--
They’re just data now.
And did John the Amoeba, feeding on sunlight, ever think
that somewhere down the line
his great-something-grandson
would be a poet?
A doctor?
A teacher?
A football player?
Did he ever think that his great-something-grandson would
sit in his room
and listen to
the Mountain Goats?
To be honest, probably not.

Grandpa’s a stranger.
He got sick when you were young, but you
could never
remember
the name of the disease.
But it all came down to the fact that he never recognized his own grandchild—
he was an ancient basket case whom you loved
because
that’s what
you were told
to do.

You were 13 when he died,
and his passing gave you an excuse
to be sad,
which worked out pretty well because
sadness
was the most stylish emotion
at Marblehead Charter
in 2007.

Grandpa won’t be there on your wedding day.
He’ll be with the vermin,
saying hello.
But you won’t mind—
you still love him anyway.

Because one day
you'll be in his place
and your grandson will be getting married
and you won’t be there,
but he'll still love you anyway.

And somewhere down the line,
you’ll be someone’s—something’s—John the Amoeba.
And you know you would be proud.

I am the most miserable amoeba aboard the amoeba train
I am the not so **** she-wolf of the amoeba train
because the amoeba train took me to Vegas and moved on--
I’m now a monkey!
An ugly monkey with blonde hair
and huge **** made of Tonka Trucks
I ******* hate these bananas!
Someone tell these toddlers
to stop playing with my *******!

PROLOGUE

Umpteen billion years
Big Bang, supernova, gas
Brief eclipse of time

Gases swirling, fall
Sun and planets, water, goo
Brief eclipse of time

Another billion
life, amoeba, fishes swim
Brief eclipse of time

Movement, change and flux
slither, crawl, climb, walk and talk
Brief eclipse of time

Ra, Sol, Helios,
Mithra and the Mighty Eye
Brief eclipse of time

Life begins and ends
birth, joy, laugh, cry, death, and dust
Brief eclipse of time

Waves cleave seas, shores, skies
forever folding, pulsing
Brief eclipse of time


            CHRONICLE

The Mighty Eye begins to slip and slowly sink,
(unfocused, stained, diffuse)
while frizzled waves imbibe her searing tears,
with salted languid lips.

The Mighty Eye, now weary, thin,
is gazing through the frozen cracks,
as sundry straying clouds,
bloated,
sidle feebly by
and wax their billowed tracks
upon the heated sky,
and cool the rush of rolling waves
beneath the blotted sky.

The waves
(impaled on time and space inside me),
gently tumbling aging pebbles
and lifeless shells across the shifting sands,
seem unaware
as they once again arise
to greet the Mighty Eye,
to close the Mighty Eye,
to ***** the Mighty Eye.

But then again,
perhaps the waves are well aware indeed,
yet simply unconcerned
and feel no need to care.

For, as the frazzled froth is rushing forward
madly towards the sandy shores beyond,
before retreating slowly,
then careening brashly forth ahead again,
eternally,
it matters little if the Mighty Eye will cast
her blazing glance from high above,
or else retire for the night,
kissed sweetly by the liquid lips
of distant faithless waves
in a brief eclipse of time.

The trees, they hang in time and space around me –
trees, which in time before had swayed,
so gently tugged by ocean breezes,
trees, which in time before were lightly lit
with emerald tinted leaves,
trees, which in time before had reached to space above
with twisted tangled fingers,
grasping fingers,
fingers drenched with golden tears
shed by the Mighty Eye.

The trees, they hang in space and time,
benumbed and frozen motionless around me
chilled with rooted premonitions of the void,
their branches clutching darkness  
and their leaves foreboding doom.

The muted winds begin to whisper tales
of many frightened things,
which, with mournful apprehension
have hunkered down behind the haze
and ceased their joyful play.

And all the while dank shadows gaily dance
a dismal dance,
for their time is soon to come.

The fitful shore lies suddenly still.

Unfeeling stones and hollow shells,
are paused a little,
stalled,
and dropped haphazardly,
midst their mindless random journey,
now abandoned by the sea,

for fickle waves have slipped away
to greet a falling prey.

And as the Mighty Eye droops lower,
laminated molten lips
are pursed and pucker higher,
******* in the sky.

Within a trice the Mighty Eye
submits and squints, distended red,
perhaps tormented by fantastic thoughts
of imminent demise,
or else of being lashed beneath a lid
of distant faithless waves.

And as her dying flash dissolves,
two lurid lips arise,
three ***** lips -
a thousand parted limpid lips
which asudden,
though with little haste,
consume the Mighty Eye.

                   EPILOGUE**

The trees are now but lurking shades
amongst the murky shadows.

Relentless fog slips slowly by -
her floating tongues drip silence
as they slink like snakes in stealth nearby.

The lacerated faithless lips have once again returned
to kiss the vacant vapid shores
in a brief eclipse of time.