Transparent Words - Poetry

 
Postmodern Observations
 
By Duane Locke
 
POSTMODERN OBSERVATIONS
 
No, what you see
Is not a strong man, flexing his muscles
To lift
A maple leaf.
Fallen red in autumn.
No, it is not a frosted glass of tepid water.
It is not a dancing bear, or a bare dancer.
It might be an old year dying its white hair cerise,
And wearing pants with an old fashioned crease.
But no, it is not.
For a while you thought it a young man
Setting himself on fire to protest the paucity of fireflies
In city parking lots, but is was not.
No, it is not an income tax accountant
Playing with paper dolls in the shopping mall.
 
Why don't you and I cease this struggle
To clarify our empirical observation,
To discover what was uncovered before us.
 
Let whatever it was remain unknown,
While you and I stretch with an arrow
The strings of our bows, shoot at bubbles
In the fountain water that flows
From the marble Venus' nipples.

 

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