Big Dragons Never Die

How many ways, though, could you slice through
An old adage concerning dragons
Such as that proverb from the game Go?

Consider the many ways it lies—
Dragons are myths; all living things die.
Myths don’t die as lives die, but they fade

From human faith and then from recall,
Transforming their tales through their long falls.
Even in the tiny world of Go,

The player who has a big dragon
Has not been guaranteed victory.
A metaphor never always holds.

So the terms lie, and the claim lies, too,
However it’s construed. But it’s true.
It’s a valuable strategic rule,

If and when appropriately used.
Where then, in this little purse of lies
Lies the truth? You’d have to play to know.

It’s a handhold somewhere up a cliff,
Like every truth. If you climb that cliff,
You might find it and be glad you did.

Maybe

People can disagree
On anything. It’s not
That they will or they must

Disagree on any
One topic, but nothing
Stands disagreement proof.

Seeing this, do you think
It’s really about truth?
Seems more a species trait,

More obligatory
For oddly social apes—
Agreement as kinship

Conjured out of thin air,
Disagreements tracing
Relationship outlines.

Agreement is wispy.
Truth is too hazardous.
Would you agree with this?

Textual Autotomy

Prose can’t do it as well—
Too cubic, brick-like, shelled—
But verse is always lithe,

Skiing in tracks that knife
Through air and down the page,
More like lizards or snakes,

Whips, distracting motions
For misleading notions
Of where their middles are.

Snap at a cursive arc,
And you’ve snipped tail from whole,
But verse preserves the soul.

Arp 273

Three-egg galactic omelet
Shaping its own frying pan,
One egg for skillet handle,

That concatenated swirl
Is no more than an object
Of pretty contemplation

Through your prosthetic lenses
For you, something to picture
Comfortably and think on—

Think on the forces involved
For galaxies to sizzle,
Pull each other apart,

Arms of stars as ejecta—
Arms of stars flung and torn out
As casually as egg whites.

Little mind, vaster than star
To a bacteriophage,
Perched on your perfect spiral,

Here in your quiet corner,
You know you can’t know, but you
Can sense in the thoughts of you

It’s not just you’re small, stars huge.
It’s the scale, the endless sliding,
Either end beyond all views.

Just Like an Earthling to Think So

We’re typical of Earth,
And you’re typical, too,
And flowers and whales and bugs—

Too, too typical. Still,
You seem to be convinced
That there’s the rest of Earth

And you, the rest of Earth
Apart from you, finer,
More virginal than you.

This, too, is typical
Of you. If UFOs
Landed now and observed,

They’d see this as absurd
And think being absurd
Typically Earthly, too.

While You Were Away

So many more poets came out
To play or to fight for a place
At the great table of the day.

And where were you? you ask yourself,
Sleeping on the porch of science,
Sleeping in old sacks of knowledge,

Which you know is never really,
Always just approximately,
At best, and that’s just flattery.

You fell asleep dreaming of facts
That all ran away as you slept.
Meanwhile, more charming poets played.