HEART THREAD 285 & 286

285.

Life stops at any moment but the
story goes on

that’s what’s wrong with it, this
imaginary present tense

weirder than any future hold me in
your hands

because I was war and got over it or
praised the seen

read the original clay of Gilgamesh
with your fingers

there is no scholarship but the
waking heart

for saying is all and thinking is few

those dim magistrates dismiss all
evidence

if you believe your eyes you’d
believe anything

I’m an agnostic when it comes to me

I speak to the simplest things
because they answer me

the question I really meant for
you.

286.

Smash the tablets at the gate

to speak in the tongues of all of you

I need to answer what you do not ask

isn’t that what polis is for

the heads to hang crowns on and
laurel wreaths

rhapsodic recitation of the obvious

smooth as religion

but it’s hard in summer when the gods
are far

we linger in our bodies no more sense
than the day’s news

now I put on my father’s green coat

and speak another language taught by
the mirror

seen through tears as he went away.

ROBERT
KELLY