JOHNMICHAEL SIMON POETRY

I’m sunburned

down to my perihelion

trying to wrench some time from the calendar

and hide it

away from tomorrow which is rushing

towards me with such intensity—

a black hole which has me in its grip

relentless, commanding, inescapable

 

Here on the roof of everywhere

pain is my scepter, my monarch, my jailor

only an ant can save me

tiny black micron that is crawling up between the stars

 

Downstairs the maids are calling children to a picnic lunch

a feast is spread between the asteroids

and Jupiter is playing croquet with the moon

 

It’s party day, balloons of every hue are bobbing

held on silver strings between the icicles of space

but there are only fragments of two yesterdays

which collided with nostalgic force between

the floating galaxies in orchestras of scintillating light

like drops of mercury fusing and becoming one

a pool of growing silver, voices growing dimmer

swallowed by tomorrow which in

thirteen point eight two billion revolutions

will become today