Epistle2ii Poem by Morgan Michaels

Epistle2ii



That even the Constitution itself, laid flat
Must seem to a gnat, in certain terms,
Like a mindscape by Hieronymous Bosch
Full of imps and avanging angels
Legal barricades and redoubts;
That, following understanding
Things are not what they seem.
My day was made;
That Realization often follows realization:
The center really does 'fall away' like Yeats said;
That happiness can never be bought;
That distraction is-mere distraction;
That happiness, if it exists, often
Consists in recognizing the subtilties of things-
The drama behind the facade;
The world outside your head
That distraction distracts from.
That you will die (probably for the best, but not just now)
And things (having nothing to do with you)
Will go on singing their eternal song;
That there's a kind of joy in knowing
Things are not what they seem;
That the world is indeed a puzzle, round,
And floats in space (doesn't it?) on its axis
Itself, an imaginary line, no? Real?
Or merely an imaginary shaft through the globe's thickest part
Cocked at an angle
To the plane of the elliptic?
That delusions are many and persistent,
And begin the moment you start to think;
That looking at the world is mostwise
Like staring at a road at night
In the fog through a dirty windshield-
Difficult but possible to fathom
The moment we open our eyes
And bring a little window wash to bear;
That unless we open our eyes
Coats arming against the cold
Soon result in over-heating;
That food, arming against hunger
Soon result in over-eating;
That too much sleep wears us out
And sooner than wakefulness;
That history is largely the exchange
Of one workable delusion for another
Each patiently waiting its turn
And turning impatient;
That the only real happiness is 'just enough.'
'Moderation, as the Greeks said, and Horace echoed-
But in the strictest metrics;
And the useful translation of idea, the horse,
Into fruitful, decorous reality, the cart,
Is the point of living, not getting and paying;
That the gods, in every case, creations of men
Are present only in the instance of translation
Like the spark when the steel hits the flint
(Or the iron, in those eponymous days) :
Sometimes at home, in my chair, eyes closed,
I think of that plane ride,
That plane, flying so....

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