I wish I could remember all the fleeting moments of beauty &
serenity
experienced in my life,
                                  but,
                                        alas,
                                               I cannot.

So, I write poems.

You write to preserve memories?

Heavens, no. I write to create them.

BLACK SQUIRREL

The pitch black squirrel
plays a bass violin. Only

known sonata for bass
violin. Only squirrel

capable. You should see
him lean into that bass

violin. One day a crow
arrives, freshly heckled

by a mockingbird, and
sinks beneath solitude

before reclining upon
the autumn shadows

of that bass violin. The
pitch black squirrel amazes

everyone—his reputation
grows by the hour.

All day long I’ve been wearing Cole Porter’s salmon tie
nestled against a sky blue oral silk button-down.

Lazily loitering and poking my head through every neon
smoke ring billowing inside every darkened piano bar.

How strange that once inside each ickering darkness
I grow gills and breathe the subterranean light.

When alive, we do the best we can.
When dead, I doubt we’ll strive for perfection.

Perfection is a Beethoven violin string,
or a box of sad woodworking tools:
hammer, chisel & sawblades rattling despair.

But dead, dead, dead we’ll pound our =sts
against reason?

Doubtful.

Perfection is not a concept but a sensation.

Jesus lays down his hammer, chisel, hacksaw
& drives his Volkswagen to a laundromat.

Waiting for him are angels in a rage,
their gowns twisted like grenades.

So, Jesus changes gender & wisely hides
behind a weeping willow’s satin eyelashes
sweeping the parking lot.

The world grows cold until a =ngertip
warms the center of Jesus’ forehead.

We awaken!

How curious.

Eventually a sphinx moth powders our dreams
with its futile lust for heaven.

Heaven that resembles a bare lightbulb
dangling this very evening from a Maryland
whitewashed plywood carport ceiling.

 

Alan Britt, Reisterstown, Maryland