Still distracted.... just mosey on...

Brontosaurus

Berlin Zyklus
before TRex was even born...

You are the sole attraction
In all this building
Full of stones and dust.
Your monstrous bones are supported
By wire and steel;
(And even they, I notice,
are beginning to rust.)
Re-assembled by minds scientific
You've survived ages vast.
If only we had such staying power!
But alas!


I once read you had two brains;
One in your head,
And the other in your tail.
Both were atomal when
Compared with your bulk.
An experiment some obscure god willed to fail?
You did not resort to killing your kind,
And grazed upon leaves and grass.
If only MAN, with his brain could do that!
But alas!


Observing you, I think of
Wonderful buildings
Not so far from here.
Now their skeltal beams
reach into the sky.
(They did not survive
a fraction of your years.)
The mind of man can flesh-in the bulk
Of your body, this city, your pasts;
But your death was natural--the city's was not,
alas.

Berlin, 1975

Breaking Stride

Prelude in G Major: Breaking Stride

for the late H.W.

Near the gas-lit starter's gate,

Sporting a strutting syntax,

Dangling part-disciples and

Ignoring invitations to a slipped-disc-o

the hipster's brow is arched

In disdain.

Eye sparks in-flamed code:

Not unlike an SOS of the soul.

I skidder on cinders, stop--

And Beechers Brooke is breached.

Wet, but intact, I step

Into the winner's circular

Bedded between flowers and flesh.

Uncertainty follows dismounting,

But celebrate the Grand-International--

At least until the next test of strength...

Graz, 1979