Revelations

by Len Anderson

I wouldn’t have made the acquaintance

of the porcupine living behind the couch

if I hadn’t heard the mockingbird

on top of the bookcase

singing a Gregorian Chant

like the throat singers of Tuva

but without any clothes on.

Maybe we should

move the hutch away from the window--

it’s funny how rainbows

that end on collapsing glaciers appear

only outside and those thermonuclear stars

have a way of popping up

only at night.  Maybe we should

see if the door opens

and invite one of those slowly dying stars

in for dinner—I’ll make the borscht

if you fry the kebabs.  But first,

it would seem foolish

if we didn’t dance around the room, with

or without any clothes on, each

humming a different tune.  Look,

this lampshade fits perfectly

over my head, so how can I not

recite the Bhagavad Gita

backwards in Yiddish while you

sing a Robert Burns refrain.

Gently now, all

without stepping on those cute little

toes of the lovely porcupine. 

O heavenly world

without end, amen.

   

Len Anderson is the author of Affection for the Unknowable (Hummingbird Press, 2003) and a chapbook, BEEP: A Version of the History of the Personal Computer Rendered in Free Verse in the Manner of Howl by Allen Ginsberg.  He serves as Secretary-Treasurer of Poetry Santa Cruz , a non-profit literary organization in Santa Cruz County .

 The web page for Affection for the Unknowable:

http://www.skyhighway.com/~hummingbirdpress/lenanderson.html

 Len Anderson  (831) 464-8983
email: lenand@cruzio.com
Poetry Santa Cruz : http://www.poetrysantacruz.org
Hummingbird Press: http://www.hummingbirdpresspoetry.com