The Cloud

Feeling a little bit blue and a lot tired since my trip to Japan

[Did I mention to the reader that I was going to Japan? Probably not. I had a wonderful time. It was lovely to see Takaaki and spend two weeks with him. He is not sure what to make of the 26 page poem I wrote about him. I think he might be embarrassed I love him so much. Tough cheese, I say. C’est la vie.]

I have been spending the last few evenings at home watching Doctor Who. There is an episode in Season 4 where The Doctor’s arch-nemesis, the Daleks, abduct the Earth and several other planets (including Adipose III) in order to use them to power a great engine which will extinguish all light—all life—in this universe—and all dimensions beyond. All life, that is, except the Daleks, who will reign in the ensuing darkness supreme.

Of course, the Doctor manages to defeat the Daleks—or, maybe, set-back the Daleks, since the powers of darkness are never quite defeated. The Doctor returns the Earth to its proper place in space and time, using his time machine, The Tardis, but not before delivering the idea for a poem to me.

The alien force which follows here, in my poem, is not malevolent or intelligent: it is simply a thick cloud of interstellar gas the solar system runs into one day—a natural disaster. Feel free to substitute your own nebulous menace, if you find mine inadequate. These are relatively abundant in the Cosmos, I understand: a problem for one civilization, the end of the world for another.

Isn’t that always the way?


The Nebulous Menace

Astronomers had seen it first. They could
do nothing but track it when it arrived,
eating at the constellations. Man
was not to be informed. He was. The void

grew visible—ink spilled among the stars—
with nothing there to soak it up: no
blotting paper—no salvation. God,
there goes Orion—Betelgeuse—all gone

beyond the small, bright corpuscle of Mars.
(Mars has a few more months to shine, you see.)
That's where my sister works, Bradbury
Weather Station on Olympus Mons:

counting devils in the peach twilight,
rusty, dusty devils dancing on
the edge of night. Good for asparagus
she says—the soils of Mars. She built a bed

beneath the dome she calls her home. She
harvested a hundred spears this spring—
as Jupiter went out. She didn’t know
what Earth expected her to do. To shout?

Wanted, wanted Dolores Haze...

Who is the juvenile delinquent pictured on the right? I found this mugshot in a box of old photographs disinterred during my recent move from Connecticut to Jackson Heights.

Clearly a tough customer, as you can tell from the bald head, the bully-boy bill and the surgical stitching surrounding the circumference of her neck. It must have been quite a fracas that left her in the hands of the police. It looks as if someone tried to pull her head off--and nearly succeeded. How this act of violence might have affected her judgment, her subsequent views of Art or Life, we can only, with difficulty, speculate.

Still, there is something about that stitching--a homespun, homemade, almost child-like quality--which indicates to one disinterested observer, at least, that perhaps this odd little bird was not entirely a stranger to tenderness--to what, in a more civilized Age, we might have called 'Humanity.'

I understand her whereabouts are presently unknown. Luckily we are not concerned with her existence as a duck, but as a work of Art. I think that perhaps what is most striking about this over-exposed photograph is how debased in our dictionaries--how soiled with use--that word--Humanity--has become.

Dolly
Or, The Twins


The mouth reminds me of a platypus—
A duck—the last of the wild red mallards. Sure,
She might be stuffed like any one of us,
But could you survive a suit of raw velour?

Her origins are wrapped in mystery.
The tag stitched to this stump still reads, “Korea.”
One wonders—North or South? The DMZ?
Dolly does not discuss her past. I fear,

Nothing—noise—not even naphthalene—
Has prevented moths nibbling holes in her back.
(Moths, which I should add, I’ve never seen—
Except as powder, palpable as ash.)

A photo of the two of us exists
Somewhere. I look much smaller. She’s the one
Appearing to examine the goldfish
Swimming around their cool, ceramic sun.