The Straight Up and Down Moon
by 
seanfarragher
|
Posted: Sunday, June 26, 2005 Word Count: 299 Summary: After reading Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "A Mathematical Problem (A humorous student-days poem on geometry), in a letter to his brother George Coleridge, 1791" and Kubla Khan -- OR, A VISION IN A DREAM. A FRAGMENT. (1798) Related Works: Books from the Bible • Finally Nothing -- • |
The Straight Up and Down Moon
By Sean Farragher
Every river had its own ego
and the muddy sand drifts away
leaving memory as a remnant
of our past named anger.
2.
Daylight was the final shadow known
before the sun quit too soon. She
broke open miraculous storylines
divided day and night with biblical
icons drawn upon ceramic tiles;
the ends foretold –syllables swell.
3.
The absolute value of the delta
of its tide is burgundy brown
grayed toward blood red canary
songs knocked by the rip tides
of a lonely moon disguised by light.
The straight up and down child has
a tortured calculus set in axiom
to deflect order and measure sin.
Dante drew every cartoon; he set
it up to mock fear and trembling.
Kierkegaard paced for hours
waiting for Christ to lift veils
and drive sex from closets
Later, the Jesuits murdered Jews.
How can we imagine Christ
without sexual desire
or the murder of woman
and man as twins.
She was fashioned from silk.
He grew from salt and algae.
4.
In the Garden of Eden it is said:
God forgot to water the flowers;
the ones that lived died too soon.
Mercy is simply not present in life.
No one cares if you survive or not.
We do not watch how the tides change
or when history can be revived as river
Remember, Christ walked upon water,
Retrieve the lists of other Kings
and Queens with sequin garlands,
falsetto moustache.
In the notes following footnotes,
Kubla Khan had no jewels;
she made the universe from
broken cameras and blank papyrus.
I know the movie ends too soon.
Confusion is noble idolatry.
Every river has its own first name.
Its geometry cannot be measured.
The limit of space is not extinction.
XXX
By Sean Farragher
Every river had its own ego
and the muddy sand drifts away
leaving memory as a remnant
of our past named anger.
2.
Daylight was the final shadow known
before the sun quit too soon. She
broke open miraculous storylines
divided day and night with biblical
icons drawn upon ceramic tiles;
the ends foretold –syllables swell.
3.
The absolute value of the delta
of its tide is burgundy brown
grayed toward blood red canary
songs knocked by the rip tides
of a lonely moon disguised by light.
The straight up and down child has
a tortured calculus set in axiom
to deflect order and measure sin.
Dante drew every cartoon; he set
it up to mock fear and trembling.
Kierkegaard paced for hours
waiting for Christ to lift veils
and drive sex from closets
Later, the Jesuits murdered Jews.
How can we imagine Christ
without sexual desire
or the murder of woman
and man as twins.
She was fashioned from silk.
He grew from salt and algae.
4.
In the Garden of Eden it is said:
God forgot to water the flowers;
the ones that lived died too soon.
Mercy is simply not present in life.
No one cares if you survive or not.
We do not watch how the tides change
or when history can be revived as river
Remember, Christ walked upon water,
Retrieve the lists of other Kings
and Queens with sequin garlands,
falsetto moustache.
In the notes following footnotes,
Kubla Khan had no jewels;
she made the universe from
broken cameras and blank papyrus.
I know the movie ends too soon.
Confusion is noble idolatry.
Every river has its own first name.
Its geometry cannot be measured.
The limit of space is not extinction.
XXX