Leaden November Sky


Status updates agree
that good things keep happening
to strangers who are my friends.
On Face Book, like a king,
I can make someone disappear 
or promote them from acquaintance 
to full friend.

Someone watches me online,
knows my preferences.  The ads
are like old Mr. Maxwell
back where I grew up, studying you 
from behind a shade.

Yet I pop in several times a day.
Someone might have had eggs
for breakfast.  A good one
appeared this morning:
Leaden November sky.  

Like the sky, the news
goes away too, reforms
as a one-sentence lecture on
how I’d better share
their message or they will know.
I do not “like.”  The sky hardens,
a jaw wired shut.   
 

I Am Up For Levitation


In 1967 some people tried
                    to levitate
          the Pentagon— 
  some swore
they saw it rise, even a little— 
               and I believe them
                               or
 would like to   but
knowing the effect environment
          has on someone
I fear it was all
           wishful thinking;
          still,
wishes are rivers
                     irrigating
         clay-like practicality.
So, I wish the pentagon would levitate
immediately.
          Up
          in the stratosphere— 
 see it!
Documents melting like Icarus' wings.

Mungo Thomson
Levitating Pentagon, 2004
Colored pencil on paper