JOHNMICHAEL SIMON POETRY

1.

There it was, completed

millenniums of toil

of merciless devotion

nights chained to manuscripts

an overture of silvery notes

a flourishing allegro

and finally a rain of sweet libretti

an opera, all harmony, an ode to joy

a growing repertoire luxurious

exuberant

 

2.

The pigs got in

broke through the hedge

dug into beds of tubers

snouts muddied all saliva

and snapping jaws

our composition a dripping graveyard

of half eaten torn pages

crushed and mangled

remnants of unborn masterpieces

devoured

 

3.

Outside in heaven’s chapel

floats a mute and lifeless relic, a warning

red desert baked by white hot sun

its melody of moisture boiled away

its eons passed in sullen silence

its music replaced by dry red sand

unpopulated vistas of

dune, rock and nothingness—

empty

 

4.

Into an airless ocean

the darkened depths of space

we sent a voyager, an ear

to parachute into the emptiness

a pipeline attached an antenna

broadcasting a stream of secret notes

gathering, gathering – its name

Curiosity

 

 

 

5.

The pigs got in

fighting each other

for food, territory,

killing and destroying everything

they called it ‘the Spring of Pigs’

cut the pipe that fed

all life and air to Curiosity

five minutes before they self destructed

their world a burning inferno

lighting up the sky in smithereens

 

6.

Across the indescribable reaches

imagined and eternal

something is growing slowly

inexorably

 

7.

A seed dropped from

a mud splattered snout

dried out, burned

almost unrecognizable

but somewhere inside, still green

a throbbing heartbeat

two notes repeating, tuning up

alive