Tangled Web

Tangled Web
 
We think of the third world in primary stains,
Bending to the red ground with their short sticks.
Bring them cities and jobs and their children play in the gutters
And lie on the street with blue-painted faces
After huffing the fumes that tear open the skies
Where chem trails flutter; falling down...
 
The west in black and white and sooty thumb-print.
Penguin kings in high rises flip their secret handshakes,
The tasteful red accent of their ties a bloom on their frozen chests.
And in the alley below the homeless wander cold in the land of plenty
And children cut and pierce their skins and join tribes in the hunger for home.
 
Half the earth is always turning toward morning and
The other toward night. Some of us are lying our bodies down,
Some are keeping watch. The clock ticks blindly going around again and again
And we follow the hours in orderly fashion.
 
The spider is hunched in her corner waiting for the fly
Who has already laid her pups on their grisly feast.
Arteries have hardened, instead of soft foot paths and streams,
Highways, bridges, fields of concrete--vehicles spewing a virus
Of smoke and lead, old sun pulled from black lakes beneath the earth,
Dinosaurs and trees breathing toxic morning breath over all.
 
We carry the seeds and sins of our greatest grandparents and
Perhaps we are here to learn how to winnow the chafe and let it blow away free,
Leaving grain heavy and sweet in the baskets we have woven to give to our children.
EVERY THOUGHT goes out from you like the huff of a dragon or the songs of mothers,
Moving lines--changing time.
If you were to soften your gaze, maybe you could just see
The light shining on every fiber; connecting everything dark and everything bright...