Trajectories
#1
It’s still the nineteen-fifties
on the rerun channel: all smiles and shining
appliances with
a track to tell us when to laugh.
The finches are arriving
and Mourning doves peck at whatever
the ground has to offer
this morning. The seven o’clock news
pushes itself between
the clouds, with fire to the west, snow to the east
and distrust in all directions. The mad
dogs of Paradise
were howling all night: it’s alright
setting fire to the planet
just leave the flag alone. Beside
the path that runs toward the desert
someone left a swivel chair
which turns to see
ahead in time
or back
to innocence and families
as solid as the rocks
on South Mountain. The words
nobody wants are circling overhead:
flames; wind; shooting; quid pro quo;
while the hawk sweeps down
and scatters them
as his talons take hold of his place
on a burning star.
Trajectories
#2
Portending the onset of the mysteries
destined to pass from mountain
into every resting heart,
the interplay between last light
and coyote breath
lines the clouds with fire.
It’s the kind of sky the saints choose
for their spirits to ascend
leaving traffic noise and gunfire
here on Earth, while they
float from star
to icy star. They don’t worry any more
that they may have left the lights on
or water running from a hose
hard enough to flood
the neighborhood. Monthly bills
don’t reach them;
their debts turn into prayers
and they count their assets
in the wounds the whip left just
between their shoulder blades
after they’d been counting
sins and couldn’t sleep.
They’re all paid up.
The Earth beneath them spins now
with its swaths of darkness and
electric moments
wherein insomniacs find solace
and stores that never close
dispense salvation. But it’s lonely
up there in the firmament,
even for the pure
who long the long night through
to be among the holy predators: bobcat,
lion and the owl
with appetites enough
for centuries more.
Trajectories
#3
The dawn bares its teeth; it’s a wolf
of a sky
and the hairs
all along the horizon are raised.
From sea to stormy sea
newscasters are scenting
their breath, and in grocery aisles
the early shift
is painting smiles on the fruit.
Happiness will be pursued today, even if
it takes a victim in its stride.
There’s no telling which way
the wind will turn:
toward the truth
or trivia.
The mountain glows. A miracle
may be at hand, but there again it might
be a long ago culture’s
rekindled light.
Trajectories
#4
Dark petals from the sky:
the mysteries float
down to earth all night. Animals
who live between underground
and starlight
come out to meet their fates
while traffic wanders
to the limits of knowledge
where GPS can’t reach.
The after-party shootings
haven’t yet begun;
it’s quiet but
for Heaven’s gates
which creak for want of oil.
Evil’s just another word
for nothing left to do,
and while the cops keep watch
the owl picks a spot
from which to observe
the salad of the sacred
and profane
with the angels taking red-eye flights
back home.
David Chorlton
Illustration Rupert Loydell