Merrily, Merrily

MERRILY, MERRILY


We called it big money
for a long time,
then we raked a pile to burn and
learned that its burning is delightful,
aromatic and fine for roasting
marshmallows, but not hot enough
to melt the ice which we'd let fix us.

We called it a circle of friends radiant
around a table (we were getting warmer),
imagining ourselves forged into a wheel of
light rolling through space, but when
the beasts which hid behind our faces--
dogs, pigs, sharks, giant anteaters,
and so forth--came forth to gorge
themselves at the table, we knew
there could be no fusion of us in that zoo--
not even a peaceful Sunday dinner.

So off we went to jog in the rain
to get our morning fix of endo-morphine.
With our bodies as bait, we trolled back and
forth across the sexual lake
until, in that shallow water,
sex became alphabetical.
Then some of us withdrew to play
at drier, safer games, but some of us
pushed deeper and were drawn
into murder, and we were shot, hung,
stoned, electrocuted, incinerated, de-
capitated, buried alive, or given
a lethal injection--depending upon
the bent of the local population.

We, the blood-fearing remnant, continued
killing time with our toys: paint brushes,
poetry, cosmetics, computers, careers,
bibles, baseballs, and babas, and we had
a bunch of fun but got so lonesome

at 3 A.M. that we had to pay someone--
psychiatrist, prostitute, priest, or
chiropractor--to pretend to give a
shit about us, but we knew better, having
seen the anteater in the mirror of each other.
Well, that's the way things skipped along
while we waited for the trash compactor.
But then, just a moment after the last
late-show's dying ember, a nameless
face appeared from nowhere,
to finally give us the picture:
Things are not what they seem.
Row, row, row your boat, gently.


Harvey Goldner