Morning,
The sun rises,
My alarm rings! Rings! Rings!
I wake up, comb my hair,
Rub the sleep out of my eyes
Make my bed tucking corners
With each blanket more taut
And when I think:
Every crease is as smooth as polished glass
And even a pea would bump up like a molehill
I stand back to inspect it with a squinting eye:
But first from every window, I hear an indistinguishable noise ...
A quiet eye-of-the-storm non-noise,
that begins to turn over and roll
and rumble forward - Tornado!
The ceiling lifts up like a lid off a pot
I, my bed, and the room around us
lifts up - higher - higher in the grey air.
I see that it's touched down not only at my home
but a locked bicycle shop and the closed public library.
Everything now is swirling about
like a funnel containing a flea market.
I collect my senses like chess pieces
scattered after an opponent sees his check mate
Clouds are level - something must be done.
I pluck from the air, from the bike shop
bicycle chains, wrenches, and tires;
and from the library a shelf of self help.
And from time itself a window of opportunity
to unwind the blueprint folded in the creases
of my pulsating cerebrum ... Times up.
I build a plane and crank the engine.
The propeller catches and slams me against the seat.
G's travel along as we escape the storm
and glide to the earth tired but safe
landing on the flat land where the buildings once stood!
Morning,
The sun rises,
My alarm rings! Rings! Rings!
I wake up, comb my hair,
Rub the sleep out of my eyes
Make my bed tucking corners
With each blanket more taut
And when I think:
Every crease is as smooth as polished glass
And even a pea would bump up like a molehill
I stand back to inspect it with a squinting eye:
But first from every window, I hear an indistinguishable noise ...
A clippity clopping noise of hoofs approaching,
a clanking of an army in full war mode,
a cavalry of soldiers in turbans and helmets
and headdresses and felt hats pinned with metals
of many campaigns, jangling , jangling.
"Whoa!" says the leader with an uptilted halt.
The horse rears back and snorts out danger.
"What is this ...?"
"Silence non-com!
You WILL be questioned, and you will blab.
Our mission to find the invisible enemy.
He came this way so we were told
by spies in the field, and undercover turncoats."
He twirled his moustache from left and right sides
and then tugged on his beard, and his men followed.
"I'm Sergeant Getum of the State Militia.
We have proof though vague and understated
which none interrogated will deny they witnessed
That some secret clan invisible and unformed
is planning an ambush at some undisclosed sector.
They strike without warning or signs of any kind
And are believed dangerous - though proof is wanting.
Have you seen this nemesis camouflaged as anything?"
I, startled, and frankly afraid
of the clanking metal and trembling triggers
felt to be candid was my only option,
"Nope."
"Lock yourself in." Says Sergeant Getum
Cradle your women tight to your bosom.
Off to the south where the light is better!"
The horses raised up and the Sergeant fired
into the clouds a superficial wound.
Dust followed the herd of men.
Morning,
The sun rises,
My alarm rings! Rings! Rings!
I wake up, comb my hair,
Rub the sleep out of my eyes
Make my bed tucking corners
With each blanket more taut
And when I think:
Every crease is as smooth as polished glass
And even a pea would bump up like a molehill
I stand back to inspect it with a squinting eye:
But first from every window, I hear an indistinguishable noise ...
A hammering noise with the squishing of oil cans
as if one was melody and the other rhythm.
"Yank that crane over here, Charlie Two-ton.
Where are my jack hammers and my bulldozers?"
Said the foreman in the yellow stiff hat.
A smell of fresh earth being newly turned
mixed with the noise, "rat to tat tat!"
I yelled, "What's going on here?" to the foreman.
As he cupped his hand behind his good ear
and tilted his head in my direction.
"You'll have to move back. We're gonna blast."
"Blast?" exclaims I in wonderment.
"What are you doing and where are your permits?"
He flashed a greasy sheet of laminated papers
that looked official. "Ok, what's up?"
"You've heard of how the tower of Babel
was built up so high none could parle vous?
Well our architect is not a showboating grandstander
And we've learned our arches, struts, and main beams.
Our 'Ps and Qs' , our brick and mortars;
Thus we the CC Construction Company
are building not up but the basement of Babel
And in tunneling, tunneling ever more down
our engineer has proved the thermodynamic
fourth law of physics periodically printed:
'Instead of arguing in a heated manner
with the thinner the air the more fractured the language
you chill together with dialectic truth
as you delve in dirt deeper down.'
Or in the vernacular, when cats quote 4:
You dig more as you dig more!
A blasting cap scattered more clods of dirt.
They handed me a helmet and I backed up beeping.
A girder was sunk and more gunk was dumped
with enough hauled off to build Mount Everest
and most of the range in his neighborhood.
And they dug down and down to the center of the Earth
where everyone understood in the same language
that here in this basement it was empty and dark.
Morning,
The sun rises,
My alarm rings! Rings! Rings!
I wake up, comb my hair,
Rub the sleep out of my eyes
Make my bed tucking corners
With each blanket more taut
And when I think:
Every crease is as smooth as polished glass
And even a pea would bump up like a molehill
I stand back to inspect it with a squinting eye:
But first from every window, I hear an indistinguishable noise ...
A gossipy noise like battling birds
with too many 'tweets' in a too small tree.
Advancing on me was the faculty
of an all girl school - the 'School of Men'.
"We teach the girls," said a demure matron
with a tint of tea smell in black burned hair
"All about men. Assemble round girls.
Lecture 1 begins ... "
Then a pause as the young girls gawk.
"Uh you being a man," said another matriculator
"must not stay. You're in the way here."
"But then other men - hordes of them -
banged at the door in deeper voices,
"Let us in! Let us in," repeated the din.
"I say let him stay and guard our door.
Better just one then all of the horde."
So I took my place by the lock and key
and marched back and forth to watch and see.
"Eyes front and center," and all the desks squeaked.
"Today we begin at page 33.
Where did we leave off?" She asked one gamine.
"We were talking of the angular hairy-backed men,
and you were about to tell us where they came from."
"Some say this sex like our own
came about through natural se-lec-ti-on.
Poppycock theory of nonsensical farce.
The real truth is - they came from Mars!"
My ears burned at this outrageous deceit,
but I batted my breathed in a wait and see.
"My lab reports, soon to be published in "Madhatter"
show their mitochondria is red by nature.
The divergence of this clade is guessed at February
of a year when calendars were then secondary..."
I coughed and murmured and they glanced at me
then turned back to the lecturer to proceed.
"They built temples out of red dust
That is why their apartments are a mess.
They loved all metals that shine and go fast
so they rocketed to us instead of us to them.
They think they're better when they're not.
They think they're taller when less short.
They wave their hand and anoint with smell
everything that we vacuum so well.
Now to the next page see the illustration.
This is a member of the Martian nation.
See the beady eyes filled with lust.
See the bowlegs and the overall gut.
See the ... "
"Wait a minute," said I, alpha male.
"I think what you think doesn't quite jell.
The facts Miss and Misses is more even a keel."
"Sir is your degree in Feminist Spiel?"
Another, "Even a door is too much to handle!"
"We'll cast you out if there is any more ruckus."
"And I'll let them in , Homo interuptus ."
"How dare you sir. You'll have to re- ..."
As the disgruntled distaffs pointed fingers at me.
I felt like Cassandra, but how swings the lid?
I opened the door and let them in.
Morning,
The sun rises,
My alarm rings! Rings! Rings!
I wake up, comb my hair,
Rub the sleep out of my eyes
Make my bed tucking corners
With each blanket more taut
And when I think:
Every crease is as smooth as polished glass
And even a pea would bump up like a molehill
I stand back to inspect it with a squinting eye:
But first from every window, I hear an indistinguishable noise ...
Clucking, slithering, barking, buzzing,
clam-shutting, bat-ringing radar noise
"The Circus?" asked I with a smile.
"No an ark." Said the Aardvark
"This is the Senate and House of Animals
Reps limited to the bio-logical.
Now hush a debate is in full swing."
Down came the gavel and up came the scene:
"The chair recognizes the Elephant and Blue Whale."
"We think it's size that determines clout."
"Order!, order!," claimed the insect emissaries.
A Pepper Moth in a pepper gown
tried to yell the elephant down,
"It's numbers sir that really count."
And the galleries exploded with a buzzing sound.
"The fish will be the official navy."
Said a flounder with a gill for gab.
"And hawks and owls will scout from clouds,"
Said an Eagle that always appeared mad.
"One thing at a time," said the Chairman,
"And what of the dues of our menagerie?
How will we choose and who will pay?"
"Taxes on taxons!" Shouted a duck,
"You think we're all plants that just cough it up?"
The lions roared, the cranes bent knees,
the reptiles slithered with forked tongues and teeth.
The herds of lambs and zebras weren't moved
"Bah, bah, bah, forsooth, forsooth."
I saw that they couldn't agree on an agenda
and lacked the ability ever to render
a plan of state, a government,
a constitutional line of consent;
no bigger picture, no reason no rhyme...
and noted in leaving that all through this whine
an Octopus kept reading the New York Times!
Morning,
The sun rises,
My alarm rings! Rings! Rings!
I wake up, comb my hair,
Rub the sleep out of my eyes
Make my bed tucking corners
With each blanket more taut
And when I think:
Every crease is as smooth as polished glass
And even a pea would bump up like a molehill
I stand back to inspect it with a squinting eye:
But first from every window, I hear an indistinguishable noise ...
A sloshing, dripping, dew-popping pinging,
water falling and pouring noise
as wave after wave rose in my room,
spray from a spring, molding its volume
to each corner and crevice and mouse hole.
The Ocean rose up, crested and spoke
in tidings of such liquid tones:
"Murmur - Mer, me; Poseidon's levee,
a current highway - slyly I flow
fanning forward - fins and flow charts
and tides that bind, hydrogen bonds.
Sink holes fill up, dew adds drops,
seas spread to lakes, pools, and ponds;
and evaporate into flying clouds.
Are they not seas in the air?
Free without care, I go where I please.
The only restraint or skin for this bounder
is temperature an upper or downer.
Yet it brings my 2 sisters in a field of 3:
Ice, Misty Steam, and middle born me."
And with that gurgle, she started to leave,
or more precisely began to recede.
Morning,
The sun rises,
My alarm rings! Rings! Rings!
I wake up, comb my hair,
Rub the sleep out of my eyes
Make my bed tucking corners
With each blanket more taut
And when I think:
Every crease is as smooth as polished glass
And even a pea would bump up like a molehill
I stand back to inspect it with a squinting eye:
But first from every window, I hear an indistinguishable noise ...
A crack, a splinter, a sudden jolt
The floor under my apartment fell, a trapdoor!
And I was left a float in the sky,
a void with stars , polka dot lights.
Off to my left side planets assembled
so close I eavesdropped on their roll call of members:
"Neptune? Uranus? Jupiter and Saturn?
Little Merc, Venus and Earth?
Mars and Reps from the Asteroid belt.
Pluto?"
"On his way."
"And always the one late!"
"We've gotten together in this cosmic round robin
for our book club fete to discuss and ponder
Dante's poem, a relic of Earth.
Of its 3 parts, we assigned the first."
Jupiter so straightforward said, "First off I see
this is not in any sense a 'comedy'!"
Saturn in deep thought said, "I liked the 'Inferno'
where fate chains sinners to their deserv-ed levels."
Neptune was vague, Uranus curt,
Mars shouted out, "Hell is like my world!"
"I was most fond", trilled veiled lady Venus,
"Of this maid his love, the beauty Beatrice."
Little Merc' said, I skipped to part three.
There's the cantos that appealed to me.
Dante leaves Vergil at the garden of Eden
and Beatrice leads the way as the duo ascends
through the spheres - that's you and me -
and to the fixed stars, Primum Mobile
and the ultimate heaven, the Empyrean.
Ah what a story, the '-est' of all '-ests'."
Pluto rushed in, "What have I missed?"
Laughter all around, mirth on mirth;
and though no sound exists off Earth,
I hear in the silence an end of clutter,
a togetherness from one to the other,
a smile light years wide, slowly forming
and out of the void I find it is ....
Morning,
The sun rises,
My alarm rings! Rings! Rings!