In a warp of solar flares
unraveling like a ball of string
in a fury of light, feuding suns
and dueling gods
the absurdity of cosmic peace
unfolds the end of days
in the clutter and crackle
of dying stars
the future is a knot untied. 

From one end to the other
how vast this universe, how also small, contained,
a jar of fireflies flashing sorrowful thoughts
as they slowly fade in the violet light 
of the autumn of their days.

So much sorrow in their lives, so fast
their glow sputters and disappears
countless particles of faith, then the silence
and the darkness of an empty jar.





Magic Uranographics
Sergey de Rocambole - 2010
Installation (rocks on earth as seen from the air)

A mythology in glyphs
where giants roamed
crisscrossed plains
and hid from predators in caves
grazed on purple shoots
and marked their presence
with their hands
then disappeared as suddenly
but left their future set in ice:
a maze of questions
left unanswered
the face of their creator
without a name
the reason they were there
in a circle without a beginning
or an end--
how soon the magic turned
to mystery and then to doubt
and finally to ice
on the seventh planet from the sun
where dreams grew cold.





The Great Mutation
Yves Tanguey - 1942
Cut-and-pasted painted paper, gouache, and pencil on paper 11 3/8 x 8 5/8 in. 
Museum of Modern Art; New York

By accident or design I am incomprehensible
even in A Field Guide to the Oddities
I am something else of another order
real or perverse not yet catalogued
named or stuffed or identifiable
to the trained eye of a scientist
a new breed born at the edge of a Petri dish’s
nativity scene where miracles grow
and I became aware of the differences among
the three of us—you, my mother, in heat
and you, dear father, who didn’t know her name
parents of another generation to a creature
of another kind: so accept me for what I am,
neither hither nor thither, neither this nor that
nor what you expected
I am still your only child.