I burn incense
mostly at night
not so much
for the aroma
but to watch the smoke
curl upward
then float away
life
approaching midnight in Moda: how the world should end
a glass of sipping whiskey
a piece of toast
a night sky
minus stars
in a city
with countless millions
awake
the sound of laughter
of a woman
across the courtyard
to a joke told
in a language
I don’t understand
this is how
the world should end
if one could script it
in a hand
that could still hold
a pen
our lives
the long
the short
all too brief
and heaven
so very far
away
to Yü Hsüan-chi: 1100 years too late
I would have saved you
if I could
but born
1100 years too late
I sigh
at the tragedy
of your too brief life
and the executioner’s axe
that cleaved
your lovely head
from the poems
you should have
written
the other thing
sometimes after talking to people
I just want to lie down and go to sleep
only I can’t sleep so there’s that
and the other thing
that we don’t talk about
but we all know it’s there
that other thing that makes sleep impossible
so there’s that too
the mouse
frozen with fear
the mouse thinks
if I do not move
maybe it will not know
I am here
but the snake knows
it always knows
and the mouse
knows too
call this life
there is that
there is this
and the other
and they all
add up to what
one does not know
we call this life
for JK wherever she is
reality
what could should would
evaporates
in tears
as what is was will be
reflects reality
the dust from one’s eyes: for John C
I long for the mountains
of 8th Century China
where one could go
to wash the dust
from one’s eyes
unfortunately now
those mountains are gone
and the dust has caked
and made us blind
perspective
that’s life
she said
with a wave of her hand
and he sighed
and replied
no, this is
Leonard Durso 