Waiting Your Turn At The Open Mic, With Light Refreshments Served

“My soul, be not disturbed
By planetary war;
Remain securely orbed
In this contracted star…”

Elinor Wylie, Address To My Soul

it isn’t that there should be rules
only it would be good if you could stop the cymbals, noise in your head (the whole time someone else is reading their one poem)

of your own poetry and how nervous you feel to get up there yourself.don’t worry.

all things have an end.
this moment is itself a single star blinking.

be still

know only that you are listening
to soul translation
from the original

like sea music coming out of a seashell
held close to the ear and pearlescent.
or static from an old radio, used up

in wartime’s obsolescence
at least in part, you’ve only got
as far as that poet could get the transmission

to come through, without the text
you have to listen hard to catch it
the quartz instances, the heart slipping

on wet stones
then starting up, tremulous
quaking, fish or mermen,

who can tell
a shift in the music, a broken spell,
the ship is freed

the icebergs brood ineffectually
but we sail on.

what if in a huge field the poet before you
has suddenly come upon a rare flower
and drifting, you miss the name…

medicinal flower, the one that would have
healed…the hidden code revealed.
the phantom word in no dictionary at all.

there is life in the flow of words paid attention to,
if not in homage,
no matter how flawed

it may be the heartfelt flaw is the one beauty resplendent
in the antiseptic reading room
doled out by the library with a disclaimer.

where some are gathered
and certain angels, say, are whispering there:
by the back wall:

old speech teachers, beatific; language itself, pale
growing paler, murmuring to a few:
Speak louder, so they may hear you at the Poles…

you may be the last poets anywhere.
as in the last moments of everyone on earth
sometimes, there is gold in the last utterance

of Light
they will say later, in Heaven, on other planets.
referring to this event.

listen…
what if it is, will be, the next batter up,
the last words that you hear, the numbing toll,

the last cherry glaze on consciousness itself;
rustling of crab apple trees; indistinguishable
from moonlight.

mary angela douglas 29 may 2019