Sine Wave Poem #5; depression lessens somewhat...

Leaf Sermon

I have been spiritually poisoned
by the unclean, in ignorance
blessed their springs.
In consequence I withered
and drifted down
from green crown to brown humus,
thinned to a fishbone pattern
of cellulose threads.

I washed into a stream
past stones squirming
with black question marks
of dragonfly larvae,
slid through reeds
into eddying pools
where I stalled until the rains
delivered me to the sea.
My last proteins fed the plankton
the humpback swallowed,
whose song woke me,
the ghost of a ghost of a leaf,
to the shocking green astral body
from which I speak:

You who seek
thrill without sustenance,
love without burden,
light without heat--
hollow, hollow men,
Tom ‘O Bedlam slim:
Your greatest feat
each work day morning
is to pull the sheet
from your own faces
to avoid being wheeled,
elbows locked,
to the refrigerated cases.


**************************

As the reader can see, the depression in this poem is lightening somewhat, though the speaker is by no means euthymic.

By the end of this series you will see poems that babble manically. So hang in there.

Happy not to be depressed, I drank and ate too much last night. It did, if nothing else, help slow me down this morning.

Again, if anyone wants a ms. copy of Sine Wave, e-mail me and I'll send it for free.

And any who want a copy of the Eliot essay for the offered prize, please e-mail me as well, as the published version is not the current one.

cechaffin@hotmail.com

Thanks, Rea, for publishing my letter at Dear Tobacco

And I wish you all a frabjous day!

CE