"sesames" poems
SORCERER 1
Fell prince, what can we say? Shall we
Wring fingers, gazing nervously
Into our black, obsidian mirror?
SORCERER 2
Or, in our water jugs, to peer,
Unbinding and retying twine,
In hope epiphanies shall shine?
SORCERER 3
Or shall we three, like puzzling mages,
Cast bright corn-kernels ‘cross the pages
Of scripture, wincing to descry
Some omen there?
SORCERER 1 Or shall we lie?
SORCERER 2
Were not your lethal gaze forbidden,
Our eyes from yours no longer hidden,
SORCERER 3
These mirrors unfilmed to windows-
SORCERER 1 Wink
We not, you might their contents drink.
They look at Motecuhzoma.
TLACAELEL
Bold, brass, and bungling open-sesames,
Whose saucy tongues shall spice my hangman’s stew,
You dare let sink your cataracted gaze
Upon the solar luminance of our king?
Who meets these eyes, beholds the face of death.
MOTECUHZOMA
Shackles shall seal their eyes. Clap them away.
My hopes were stillborn by these blind-man’s bluffs.
SORCERER 1
A grand charade shall come to pass,
As marching mysteries amass,
And urgently these lurkings gather.
SORCERER 2
If that is what your lord had rather
Hear from us, so be it, then.
SORCERER 3
We’ll break our seal and thus unpen
Two breeds of vision we may show:
Oct 23, 2016
Oct 23, 2016 at 1:02 PM UTC
or perhaps a bagel
with sesames scattered like stars
or a dry-roast well
shelled with clay
I will not be filled
with nuts or cake
nor love or science
for I am empty
and silent.
And the universe is too
a toroidal void devoid of life
spare our transactions
of nuts for shells
nulled as astronauts
pass the transmit limit
How the sun flashes
on copper pennies splashing
wishes in water.
Up here
saturn's rings
are all but nut shells
far flung from jets
which fly by mars at sunset.
I long for the pure
hydrogen at a star’s heart
to melt the iron
though my thoughts float
with hot gas I forget
we are seeds of the future
funnels of becoming
me and the universe
empty packets
with full stomachs.
Jun 21, 2022
Jun 21, 2022 at 7:06 AM UTC