Carkeek Poems

I could write about
the softness of clouds reflected on the stillness of water
the dismembered crab picked at by seagulls
the rust-encrusted ancient forgotten sewage pipe exposed by this minus-two-foot tide
wondrous continents of sand with ephemeral rivers and seas flowing

I could write about
the sun breaking through and winking at me among the ripples of sand

But then I would be tearing the moment apart
(as the seagulls tear the crab)
I would be deflecting
diffusing
avoiding
hiding from
this very THIS:

this never
repeated
gone-as-soon-as-it-appears
moment

But to call it “moment”

To call it

To call

Sacrilege

Parallelogram

A wooden pallet
the kind forklifts use
has been tide-tossed here and there on the beach
for a couple of weeks now
slowly disintegrating
splintering
adorned with seaweed
it imposes a geometry on the landscape
like the soccer ball, the pingpong ball, the notebooks, the dented beer cartons

Well

There is geometry everywhere, fractals and complex curves
waves and solids and the arcs of bird wings

We humans are so damn simple
I am simple
I pick out of this landscape those points of purity that my kind likes to generate
the white boats on the water
the airplane darts thrown through clouds,
the monotonous drone of engine, leaf blower, railroad car

But as I approach the foam of my mortal end
the algal decay
the splintering of my wood
I have so much to learn about irregularity,
so much of regularity to release

While the palette’s parallel slats may be
the last part of its form to collapse,
they will collapse, and so will all my thinking