Like Flints

It is a glance turned away,
that grows & grows insatiable –

David's stolen or Solomon's many wives.
In the memory of time, a man

stops by the sea shore, calm,
bends to look at splintered shells,

gathers the skeletons of fish,
littered on an island of salt.

Death-bodies, dream-dodgers,
sailed to an icy land,

away from heat that splits.
Time will tell a clock from a vase,

hand that curve upwards,
lighting like flints

 

Dream Tracks

Dry sticks crackle near the flower
& it is a flame, a white-light

glow come alive. Shapes
sift into protean forms, mercury

without body & helium without mass.
Roads lead here, &

point to seven highways,
hills on maps, signs to journey north,

to the white mountain, the lookout peak.
In the valley scythes scratch & screech,

cut sheaths & chaff,
wheat formed in the veneer.

Blue smoke & wiry flames float,
locomotives run silent.

 

Copyright © Joshua Auerbach, 2003.