Past Lives

for the Dead Poets’ Society, Wasteland Chapter


Tonight, there is a meeting
of the Dead Poets Society, Wasteland Chapter.
I arrive in  my metaphysical helicopter,
late.  Time is fleeting,

no remedy for that.
I am wearing a long-sleeved starched white shirt,
gray trousers with suspenders, shoes caked with dirt,
and an old straw hat.

I have brought Sacajawea.
I wear frost in my beard and my eyes are burning.
Gray sky, white ground.  And in the air a churning
furious frost.  I see a

clearing.  But I mostly feel.
Time is fleeting.  Suddenly I am painting a wall
in a flickering cave, and I am not cold at all.
I am naked and surreal.

I am listening for gibbons.
They sing at sunrise.  I have been awake.
I am in a tree, holding a branch.  I shake.
Clouds are red ribbons.

Something.  Less.  Mist.
Where?  It moves.  I move.  Like.  Same.
Me.  More me’s.  Not me.  Word.  Name.
Not now.  Now:  kissed: