The Hydra of Days

      The idle angling
      			of a watersnake--
      loquacious and lungless
      			through yellowing waters
5     faded, sulfuric
      			of a hurried traveler's Chesapeake
      -- through tums of evolutionary
      			time still saunters.
      Politicians, as limericks tell,
10    			are of a swift and similar species;
      unchanging agile evil vile
      			a Nepalese prince with an Eton smile
      considers the cost of suicide
      			the price of becoming a democracy.
15    Pelestinian flags
      			on fallen Faisel Husseini
      drape the dark Dome of the Rock
      			while he's more leisurly laid beneath it.
      Mourners wail until their faces congeal
20    			to unfeatured unsculpted stone,
      blunted as snakes' in a pit.
      Chinese warships in a watery ring
      			lazily braid to enclose
      the pale clarity and newsworthy brattle
25    			of independently little Taiwan.
      Would cobras or roses be roses or cobras
      			if they could be persuaded to choose?
      Another day, another hour goes
      			cold-soldered to the chain.
30    State Street bagpipes and banners
      			play old Joe Moakley to rest;
      dead as he'd lived, paraded,
      			by cries and high casuistry followed,
      down to the crypt and the Beantown dirt
35    			he lies interred with the rest,
      another day snaked to the flow.
      "All change as they die,"
      			is the evolutionist's cry,
      "and all ways wander unlost
40    			toward the one wild Great Way.
      Each creature encircled
      			beneath the infinite 'Ifs' of the sky
      is trapped in the hydra of days."

 

From the collection "The Sword Inside"

Written by Gregg Glory [Gregg G. Brown]

More information available on gregglory.com.