Sunday, October 04, 2015


RIVER RUN

The Tigris and the Euphrates
never existed at all even for a minute
that anybody can prove for sure
and you can just put away the photograph
the one of you by the bridge in Istanbul
or was it Constantinople 
see what I mean
even cities aren’t definite
anyway 
it looks like you
with the pale skiff beside the river
stuck there in the middle of the stream
in spite of its heeling in invisible wind
we all know
the stream itself
is never the same
even from one minute to the next
roll Euphrates roll

and whoever figured out the mystery
the one about snowflakes not being alike
thought he’d stumbled onto something
that isn’t anything compared to a river 
those things are just outrageous
when you think about it
refusing to be pinned down 
wide sometimes a mere trickle
long or shot like the Singapore
would you believe that river is half a mile long
no gravel or great rocks there
roll on Yang-tse
faint fragile finally deep
clear as an August sky
in deep canyons it goes
and through broad plains
roll roll Colorado
icy film covered with frost
warm bringer of life
destroyer 
sweet putrid murky
slow
betrayer
running smooth 
rough in the storm
forbidding inviting
the highway to where we ought to go
River Jordon roll on

rains come
the pace quickens 
trickle to stream to flood
roll on Missouri
red clay cliffs
hawks circle and ibis strut
Zambezi roll on
dead men bloat in lukewarm water
roll Mississippi roll
warehouses and docks
roll Swanee roll
catfish surface and dive
funeral pyres drift smoldering
Ganges roll on

Icebergs stay in the ocean
thank god

roll on Amazon.






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