JesseAbbot.com

I stand and wait now
in anticipation of
one more day’s restraint.

In India there was a one-footed goat.
Some called him a two-faced man,
or a dwarf form of the Lord.
I say he was a mystery familiar to us:
Rumpelstiltskin: the tale with no clear moral.

Like Zeus having a bad day,
jurists craft absurd agreements.
When the thunderbolt fire exceeds its thunder,
and the manager demands TQM
(Tanakh-Quran-Messiah)
all in one package,
there is never enough grain in the larder
to the point when the silo is full
but this one climbs up to check it anyway
and falls from more than grace.

Why are the sins of the father visited upon the child?
Why do some children get stuck with impossible tasks?
What distinguishes a company in graveyard spiral from a cult?

Or why does the girl in that story have no name?
There were no pillows at the head of her bed,
just another part of the stool to shift to.
What would you or I have done in her situation?

A lion gets all the credit for his wife’s work.
A little girl gets the blame for foiling her savior’s treachery.
We naturally think of our justice system,
again, on its off-days.

These are the stories that makes no sense,
so the villian self-destructs,
tears himself in two,
plummets to a hellish tomb,
falls on his own sword.
The program has run afoul of its code
& the vacuum in Yellow Submarine sucks itself up.

All the reasons for why things don’t work
do not necessarily make them work any better.
Hop on one leg, name the name, defame the devil.
It would seem that horses never sported wings
and unicorns require a specially bred goat.
Or so proclaim the skeptics.

This is one of those times for reflecting
why they put the Oval Office in the West Wing.
Perhaps facing the end of the day
and spinning it into something new
is the only way.
Straw spun into gold,
do-over tax rebate checks—
our world rests on both small
and slightly greater comforts,
and explanations for when they all run out.

And then the question becomes
whether to worship the mutant goat
or simply blame him.

Within the nothing is a something;
a baker’s hundred doctors
plant the same number of flowers
in the trough of your day mare.

Within the nothing is a hundred stars,
a sprinkle of fairy dust concealed,
the sweet reformed demon of ether.

In this water is reflected
a wizard’s hat, full of dots of sky;
in the eyes of the dragon’s head,
the path through these same heavens.

Trust in the language of the depths
to hide your healing treasures
’til they need awaken.
Rely on your own raw duty
to unite your zeal with philosophic fences.

The lioness on the hunt

the dolphin in his countless rescue efforts

know the value of timing

but getting adept at our own drumming

we get too big for our rhythms

& think we’ve discovered the formula for lions,

dolphins, Long Term Capital Management.

Drumming up publicity or success

would seem to require an appreciation for what

a drum is: its wood and its skin,

its vivacity, its gravitas.

Where energy can be dissected into discrete beats,

the atoms of vibrations,

most secrets lie, but the greatest secret

seems to me in knowing how to stop.

I am told our pulse has three footsteps

and I am listening for them, eagle-eared,

for I cannot see a difference on this earth.

I have to find the foreign track of moon

.

that takes human words from no more

than monkey gossip to the voice

behind the performer, tutor behind the book.

Attune my lame ear to the One who sings.

for Barack Obama, whose sky at birth was adorned by this star

Hard work does not pardon by itself,
cannot win progress through a single patron saint,
but needs a team of angels to reach tusky strength,
design a skylight from which the sun can breach

the planks beneath our slumber. That is the platform
of the new man on the rise, the tact of light
within the bridge from law to the labor of making
it happen. Our mongoose vs. the adder of defeat.

Love winnows out the truth
but also fans out to populist size;
the bow from which I fire at fish
in barrels big as the ocean

is good for the belly and area
ships, but more of a hurdle
when I sight the shore and learn
my weapons and sports are toys,

my sea delimited by rainfall,
my aim and reach out of season.
The monkey in the video game
should shuck more than bananas

and prizes that fit on his screen,
and know that much that resembles
heaven appears as invincible,
& shares its sheen. Love is underneath.

Digging to the base of me
redoubtably requires
roots, a knowing of both
botany and breaking bad-

lands. So out the demon
of the will, to grow free
of all that will not
center. Destructive Muse,

help me to make durable
things, guide me in the craft
of heading South to end
up North, of trailing dog-

like as a means to lead.
Find the mean between
insect sting & lion’s tail,
& yield Centaur. Save venom

at a mortgage pace
of doses toward immunity:
not a tying off of law—
an anchor in the law of space.

While I was on vacation, I could not always calculate the lunar positions, so the cycles were somewhat off. Accordingly, we continue with the lunar mansion Jyestha (division of Scorpio begun prematurely yesterday) today—and a third haiku—to bring us closer to course.

thought of veterans
lately, and the ambush they
get when they return.

add heat to verdant
desire for data and might,
earth upholding sky.