Pole Shift: poems for a changing world

An excerpt from my new book

Pole Shift

An excerpt of three poems from the 12-poem sequence

—I—

If it seems to you the world

is upside down, north is south,

and south north, then it is.

Trust your intuition, it seldom lies.

No longer is Hell “down there”

somewhere. Dante’s

Seven Circles of Hell now

spiral upward, while Heaven

barely clings to the soles of our feet.

The dust we shake off our shoes

all that’s left of the angels

we exiled to irrelevancy.

This is what happens

when we cultivate the Lucifer

inside, elevate ourselves

to be the “Shining One”

at God’s right hand.

The prayers of billions

try to lift the dead weight

from our brows, to no avail.

This pole shift moves, quick

and silent on snowy paws,

thirty-five miles a year, headed

for Siberia. The clawprints

of its hunting track pull us

behind—human souls

so many iron filings

to a magnet.

—II—

Watchers of the skies,

where are you all? What has become

of Athens’ stargazers and their pupils?

Why have our cities blinded

the stars’ eyes? Why are all

the mountaintop lookouts vacant?

Lighthouse keepers a damp

imprint of salt on a sea-bashed

tower. All beacons aimed downward,

into the unlit blackness, the abyss

of self. Do not forsake us,

ancestors, whose breath

left its imprint on time

and mutters just beyond hearing.

Help us understand, roll

with the compass, not be torn

to matchsticks. Come to us

in dreams, in a distracted,

inspired drift: This way lies

ground that will not give way,

nor betray the foot that trusts

to its weight. Here, when birds

chatter, you will finally

understand, and no wings

will lose their way.

—III—

You don’t know one hand

from the other. Left is right,

right is left. Don’t look to one side or

the other—lockstep, fixed stare.

Walk around with hair stiff,

electric on your neck with fear.

We hunt down scapegoats

while serial monsters roam free.

Friends become enemies,

strangers family.

O enemy of mine, you are

everywhere, and always here

beating in this head.

O Thanatos, let me yearn for life

as much as for you—your quiet

soft as black velvet.

Aurora borealis a tricky dancer,

glitter in the eye, shuffling first

southwest, then back east;

scientists disagree, confused.

Poets throw back their heads

and let it rain, rain, rain.