(It is a string of beads
one should look at with luminous eyes.)
—Kabir
That's Kabir
tripping on pharmaceutical LSD or otherwise
analyzing our DNA
the way Socrates addressed
his students not enslaved
to hauling limestone
up the treacherous Aegean coastline
for the foundation of Greek society.
That's Kabir
asking us to drink our exotic coffees
with a modicum of truth.
It's the only way,
Kabir says,
to avoid the insufferable straw traps
laid along the forest floor
of our insufferable faith.
For 20 years I’ve never quite discerned
these twisting white flowers
in the twilight
that filters
our gauze dining room curtains.
Outside, heavy humidity rubs her breasts
against all eight window panes.
I believe these white flowers
belong to the camellia or wild rose
family, somehow,
flapping their crocheted wings
at the sight of April
sauntering in the nude
past our open dining room window.
(I chose my own illusion...)
—Pablo Neruda
Since illusions are doled out like bouquets
of canary, iris, and mauve flowers
neatly stacked in white plastic five-gallon buckets
waiting for us at the next intersection.
Well, the truth is that illusions
every day get crushed beneath the supple hooves
of a mountain goat
who's flowing white hair resembles an angel
recently escaped from the local Catholic church.
There are green chirps beneath the green canopy
of our fabulous maple
who's becoming a tyrant these days
with her glistening wet leaves
that create perpetual dusk.
A male cardinal injects his hypodermic of morphine
methodically into the afternoon's green shoulder,
followed by six drops of mercury
rolling down the cracked pupils
of the religious icon's paint-peeled eyes.
Alan Britt's recent books are Vermilion (2006), Infinite Days (2003), Amnesia Tango (1998) and Bodies of Lightning (1995). Britt’s work also appears in the new anthology, Vapor transatlántico (Transatlantic Steamer), a bi-lingual anthology of Latin American and North American poets (Hofstra University Press/Fondo de Cultura Económica de Mexico/Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos de Peru). Britt recently served as Panel Chair for Poetry Studies & Creative Poetry for the PCA/ACA Conference 2007 in Boston and read poetry at the WPA Gallery/Ward-Pound Ridge Reservation in Cross River, New York (2008). Alan currently teaches English/Creative Writing at Towson University and lives in Reisterstown, Maryland with his wife and daughter.