Poem for Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Talking about Existence on the Roof with Nadeem

I.

What he wanted to say was the
ineffable. The dogwood buds drooping
against humid night. The lights refracting
through the hospital windows across
the street. The magic
of hyper-awareness



II.

We smoked through the millenniums as the
occasional car trudged on to nowhere. Religion
then big bangs then the human brain and
all its synapses. The most poetic thing that could have
occurred then: a breeze-plucked leaf spiraling
towards the indifferent ground



III.

He was wearing a red polo and glancing at his
dangling feet. Then he gazed up at the
sloping wooden fence and remarked--as if on behalf of the
entire universe--everything has
meaning



IV.

Propellers in the sky interrupted. They sliced through
sleeping stratus clouds just because they could. They whirred
with the power of celestial acoustics. God
they could have delivered Derrida's gift
without warning or bow
 
                                       *

Something cannot come from nothing, he proclaimed
before the helicopter overtook us.
We descended