Grasping for straws is easier;
You can see the straws.
"This most excellent canopy, the air, look you,"
Presses down upon me
At fifteen pounds per square inch,
A dense, heavy, blue-glowing ocean,
Supporting the weight of condors
That swim its churning currents.
All I get is a thin stream of it,
A finger's width of the rope that ties me to life
As I labor like a stevedore to keep the connection.
Water wouldn't be so circumspect;
Water would crash in like a drunken sailor,
But air is prissy and genteel,
Teasing me with its nearness and pervading immensity.
The vast, circumambient atmosphere
Allows me but ninety cubic centimeters
Of its billions of gallons and miles of sky.
I inhale it anyway,
Knowing that it will hurt
In the weary ends of my crumpled paper bag lungs.

Copyright © July, 1988 Mark O'Brien <marko@well.com>. All Rights Reserved.

I scream
The body electric,
This yellow, metal, pulsing cylinder
Whooshing all day, all night
In its repetitive dumb mechanical rhythm.
Rudely, it inserts itself in the map of my body,
Which my midnight mind,
Dream-drenched cartographer of terra incognita,
Draws upon the dark parchment of sleep.
I scream
In my body electric;
A dream snake bites my left leg.
Indignant, I shake the gods by their abrupt shoulders,
Demanding to know how such a vile slitherer
Could enter my serene metal shell.
The snake is punished with death,
The specialty of the gods.
Clamp-jawed still in my leg,
It must be removed;
The dream of the snake
Must be removed,
While I am restored
By Consciousness, that cruelest of gods,
In metal hard reluctance
To my limited, awkward, declase
Body electric,
As it whispers promises of health,
Whooshes beautiful lies of invulnerability,
Sighs sibilantly, seraphically, relentlessly:
It is me,
It is me.

Copyright © March, 1988 Mark O'Brien <marko@well.com>. All Rights Reserved.

Upon hearing what had happened,
Jesus withdrew privately by boat to a
solitary place.--Matthew 14:13

Bad news for sure,
John's stern, wild-maned head chopped off
And left gasping on the straw
By Herod, that baffled, frightened, smalltime king.
If John could see the swift, hard ax descend,
Feel it slice through his neck-hair, skin, windpipe, and spine,

And in his rag of dying time
Think about it,
Consider Herod with amusement, contempt, rage,
Whatever tempers were available to him,
Then perhaps I could do the same
In the event that this sly bloodhound
Should favor me with such royal hospitality.
Not now, I thought, not now,
I muttered to myself, walking quickly, nervously,
To this lake, to this dock,
Where this sullen, bored man rents boats for cheap,
Even to the crazy-but-harmless,
To push out upon the flat water.
I push these heavy oars down and through
Dark, rippling reflections of sky,
Oars not as heavy as grief or fear, let alone death.
They give a lasting ache to my arms,
An excuse to complain about something unimportant.
Here, in this old boat,
With its mean splinters biting into my thighs,
I rent a few hours of peace and solitude,
Two things I'll never own.

Copyright © March, 1987 Mark O'Brien <marko@well.com>. All Rights Reserved.