Rosewater I I punch in on the god-clock and find I am stuck - TopicsExpress

Rosewater I I punch in on the god-clock and find I am stuck between yesterday and today Drowning in the backwash of time On my way to the bottom Holy and leaden with the unconscious dreamy drag of human inundation On my long way down I discover survival is based Simply on how long I can hold my breath I spend all my time trying not to breathe I dont turn blue I turn regal red in a shallow bowl of rosewater. II At five in the morning on the atomic clock (An infallible and tragic timepiece) I soak and sink in a dead Indian river Forever miserably damp with the impending weariness Of the crazed cracking thundercloud Of a clear blue sky moment Fresh water blue but often tinged red upstream Way upstream pouring forth from the open veins of the almighty Such coloration depending also on what clay cherub Is bleeding into what stream I only come to clean a scrape a scratch the lethal gouge Inflicted by the knife of life And the waters boil with the berry And the thistle of the blood. The dead Indian river sparkles with this mix As I look down at the dark flood waters of my dreams As I slowly asphyxiate in this sink of a sacrament And tint the bare fragment of one wave. III A summer sunrise Clouds burn and blue water stars sink behind me The atomic clock clangs and I blink At this rebirth of bright blue skies But yet a storm comes and goes In a matter of minutes Electric jagged swords brandished Sheathed portends of the heavenly quarrels Of a few quick clouds And then the downpour the sobs Of a battle gone wrong Where there is neither victory nor defeat Only an endless war between earth and air And earthy and airy I dont know who to cheer for who to love Who to hate. Dawn triumphs The thunderheads scatter The storm sits far away beyond the horizon terrorizing others And the big fat buttery sun squats On corn fields across the dead Indian river The fields burn but there is no fire There is only the shadows of fire And I look across at this scarlet landscape And see that there is no passion There is only the glint of passion The red tint of an old wound that forever weeps And I want a new laceration of the whole world I am tired of wading in this froth-less surf I want to cut the white flesh of last nights comet The comet I was told cannot be seen But I see it Still hovering behind the pines and above Blue diluted stars I see it And I want to drown in comet blood The glue and globs of it Pink snow glistening with the heat of heaven Hanging and hardening on everything Making a tin and tissue place thick and iron hulled With ripe red bars of passion A brisk and healthy hot shower A fine scalding of the veins Of such cold vessels That twist and turn within for miles and miles Only to tie such a tepid knot. I want to get up and out of this old cold dead Indian bath Comb my hair with the sweep of last nights comet And dry off in the morning Of my own ruin