"mercator" poems
I’d like to climb the clouds
Leave footprints in the sky
so I know I’ve been there
and it’ll have something to remember me by
I want to see all the longitude lines
that are nothing more than constructs of our minds
Have you ever turned the map upside down?
Maybe the US is only hanging on to South America
by a hook called Mexico.
You don’t get what you see
because Mercator
wasn’t quite right with his projections.
Boy, was he ambitious though.
He took something
not even a quarter the size of the Sahara
and dreamed it big enough
to kiss all the corners of Africa.
I want that kind of determination.
I want to stop filling my imagination
and start filling my eyes
with realities of cities and seas,
valleys and villages.
I don’t have to move mountains,
I’ll go to them.
The continents are playing coy
and just because I’ve seen them more than once
doesn’t mean I know them yet
I want to learn their favorite colors.
I want to go far enough away
that I’m not afraid to never come back.
You know wherever I am,
when I close my eyes,
all I see is the horizon.
I’ll draw my own map across my body.
Haleiwa, Hawaii on my chest.
The hottest day in summer, her
shave ice melts into my heart to keep me cool.
Paris is on the inside of my knee,
so I can protect her, keep her on her pedestal,
like you always do with your first love.
Tanzania circles my throat like a Maasai necklace,
it glints in the sun and jingles when I dance.
Dublin’s like a freckle under my chin,
it took me a while to find her,
but now I know there are things worth looking for
And I’ve got plenty of space left on my skin.
Jun 3, 2012
Jun 3, 2012 at 11:41 AM UTC
Salt in my veins
Revolution in my heart
Letting loose the reins
Finally getting a start
Twenty four years later
After my birth
Grabbing the Mercator
******* in my girth
No longer ignoring
The calls of the shores
Set forth exploring
Opening the doors
One to a lake
Largest in the West
My option to take
And call it my best
The other a sea
Foreign as mars
Alien life to me
Whole new set of stars
This is my option
Can't be made haphazardly
Not sold at an auction
No time for jackassery
Interviews lined up
Will tell the tale
One for a backup
Should I likely fail
Apr 15, 2017
Apr 15, 2017 at 1:22 PM UTC
I live
long, awkward silences in the moonlight
on the surface of another planet.
History is our theme song.
You live
with demons in your brain, in the country home
that is the back of your mind.
It lives
like a dog without hind legs
pulling itself along in its own chariot car.
We live
five miles from the waterfall
at the edge of the Mercator Projection.
They live
as a herd of emotions
stampeding out of control.
History is our theme song.
Aug 8, 2010
Aug 8, 2010 at 5:48 PM UTC
Well, the maps were quite ghastly, you know;
We’d assumed the Frogs would have a pleasure cruise,
All baguettes and brioche, up the straits.
We’d no idea the Turks had dug in as they did,
As the spooks and their charts
Revealed sheer cliffs,
Harmless as Dover.
Nor did we fare much better on dry land,
The topographical atlases we had in the field
Might have been compiled by Mercator himself.
The Turks fought quite well;
One gives them a measure of credit for that, one supposes.
Frankly, we’d have been better served
If we’d just waited for the de rigueur internecine slaughter,
What with the ease they’d hacked each other to bits
Over some ancient family squabble or inconsequential tribal matter
(Can you imagine civilized peoples
Fighting to the death over such trivia?)
I suppose such cruelty and boorishness
Should have not been surprising.
They wouldn’t take prisoners, you know;
Just shot our boys willy-nilly,
With no regard whatsoever to honor or military convention,
Though it should have been no surprise
That the swarthy ******** would not play by the rules.
Sep 26, 2017
Sep 26, 2017 at 8:54 AM UTC