Neil Ellman

Every seven years
along with its skin
like an inflated balloon
emptying itself of air
it sheds its past
and the knowledge it had won
through swamps, villages
and gardens of myth
the reason it was created
as a metaphor for sin

Every seven years
it grows more beautiful
spotted, speckled and striped
re-filled with ravenous air
reborn to seduce again
in its conquest of the soul.

The trees along the garden path
and along the city streets
are dying of polkadots
feverish, choked by the fumes
of passing buses, cars
and indifferent passersby
they have shed their leaves
grown weak, listless,
inarticulate even to other trees
even in spring unable to bloom
while puppies urinate at their feet—
they ask on bended knees:
O god of trees and polkadots
why has thou forsaken us?

It’s what we all think:
there is no such thing
as magic
all sleight of hand
trap doors and mirrors
nothing is real
or what it seems

as when the magician
waves his wand
and his assistant is
halved and disappears
and with another wave
returns again
as if always there

but there are no hollow boxes
filled with mumbo jumbo words
misdirection and trickery
when the sun magically halved
then concealed by night
re-emerges from the sea.

Having arrived
journey done
drifting on feathers
burnt through
a sputtering flame
licking its own wounds
after so many miles
millennia of appetite
and sky—
who would have thought
the earth would be so
cold?

I am old
Prufrockian old
(I am told)
My toes are cold
Teeth filled with gold
I cannot hold
A fork.

I am old
A very old
Cuckold

(Not bold
I am told)
There is mold
In the rolled
Fold
Of my cuffs.

Don’t scold
I am too old.

(after the painting by Salvador Dalí, 1928)

Sooner or later
Everything rots
Bananas, artichokes,
Wood, stone, and bronze
Paint and poetry
Our very flesh—
Even a lifeless bird
Hanging from
A tree
Waiting
For the wind
To change
To spread
Its wings again.