Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ANY TWO WHEELS, by JANE MILLER


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ANY TWO WHEELS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Firecrackers thundering day and night, and lightning silences
Last Line: And white as the snow of one night, all our nights.
Subject(s): Art & Artists; Culture Conflict


Firecrackers thundering day and night, and lightning silences --

a few blossoms, the lowly mountains, that pair in the tunnel of love
-- and it is a tunnel, and it is love --

it's almost as if everyone is smiling on the streets of the government,
the weeds can touch us only so far up our legs
where it will be spring, spring when we get out --

easy to live without money, without equality and power
in a bar with a lemon fizz, dancing with the two or three best lookers,
a little older than one might have picked, hippier,

-- no, it wasn't a holiday!
-- I only knew one such day in my life!
-- whose fault was it, as far as art was concerned?

the flower that very night I have in my hair, I shall talk about it briefly --
the end of the war did not bring liberty, and that seems to me
more dangerous than pain, my little anacin --

my arm ached from keeping that flower intact, I have quite a head of hair
you see, and a blue poppy is hard to find, really is
a strain on the imagination, no?
-- now when the firemen put out the stars I think of it, I

-- it showed me how exhausted we had been, touching language directly,
and though nothing is conceivable for us now, the borders
of language fade -- film, magnetic tape, mime -- if you look closely,
down on one hand if need be, you'll see the discourse there,
incomplete, digressive,
the lovers kissing and arguing at the same time, the heat divine,
and as long as time permits, they go on smoking --
they think it's OK sleeping alone in space --
ascending and descending the misty grapes as if there is no art of interruption
-- and they are grapes, and it is misty --
now that everyone loves the taxman and embraces the police
whose lips are like berries too,
berries of course are now entirely terms, no amount of
gentility can conceal that fact but everyone is properly
instructed in sheer projection -- listen,

a heart this big, if anyone's asking, utilizes
diamond chips, and in the poorest countries, as big as a ball of thread
which sticks to your hand and draws the boat ashore, where a hundred
years are as one day, that same woman weeping since the erection of a round
tower,
the first sign of official culture --
-- was there a ridge with a lake on either side?
-- beachfront and pink sand?

the sulphur sets and the sulphur rises like a minotaur,
our bodies are straight and perfect, daylight as black as a beetle,
and white as the snow of one night, all our nights.





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