GREAT BOOKS & COFFEE ALL DAY: GREAT BOOKS & BREW ALL NIGHT
Tell yer friends about this page & the Jollyroger.com Renaissance!
ETERNITY IN A GRAIN OF SAND
(WYOMING IN MANHATTAN)
by Drake Raft
I'd heard trying to sleep through the spring thunder,
As the stormy March sky drew lightning's sword,
I dreamed it was God beginning to wonder.
And I dreamed I was captain of a ship,
I dreamed of a loyal crew about me,
Sailing the world wide web at a great clip,
With my soul's keel thundering across the sea.
And I dreamed poetry rhymed once again,
And they were building marriages to last,
That lovers set flowing verse down in pen,
Children didn't have to grow up so fast.
And when I awoke, I saw it could be,
I could break through the fog with poetry.
So I packed my pack with some old sonnets,
And bought a ticket to New York City,
A fisher of men, from words I weave nets,
Bid farewell to the Southern spring so pretty.
And I watched America's city recede,
As I rose in the Carolina blue,
And I recalled all we ever really need,
Are those deep-down things that we always knew.
Away up there--I'd never felt so free,
The tide was turning, and this was my chance,
No denying what spring'd thundered to me,
Beyond the fog I'd glimpsed a renaissance.
I wanted peace, but I knew it would take war,
To gain the eternal soul's pristine shore.
For I knew well the cynics' cruel weapons,
How postmodernists kill with irony,
But yet, their best--it only ever stuns,
While they burn so fast in rhyming beauty.
To gain the rainbow you must know the storm,
And fierce, dark clouds swirled rain at JFK,
It's only by winter that spring is warm,
And a cold March wind blew through the subway.
The Taxi driver said he did not know,
Where Central Park's ducks went in the winter,
But my friend was in Cats, and after the show,
We went out in Chelsea and I asked her.
But before she could answer, she was high,
She'd given up--didn't even know why.
And if someone has to go it alone,
If it's for poetry, I'll volunteer,
If somebody has to remain unknown,
Then I'll take the helm, you can stay right here.
For working for money's too great a risk,
A poet doesn't need an IPO,
For the same wind that carries truth shall whisk
these poems about the globe, and all shall know.
Out here the internet's not 'bout money,
And words aren't about building a brand,
Beyond the irony where one can see,
The eternity in a grain of sand.
And if, and if I can show it to you,
It's only because this you always knew.
An undercover rebel, on the run,
Amongst the tourists touring through Time's Square,
With the dazzling lights brighter than the sun,
It could be hard to hear her solemn prayer.
For something a little bit deeper now,
For a promise, a promise that would last,
For an ideal a bit higher than the Dow,
Which would endure when all else joined the past.
I didn't say it, but I saw it there,
Deep within, behind her soft, subtle eyes,
And to say it, you know I didn't dare,
For I was undercover, in disguise.
It was too dangerous to write her a line,
For in New York rhyming truth is a crime.
Then I was on the Tribecca rooftop,
Found her again, though she was someone new,
I wanted to go slow, wanted to stop,
And talk about all that we had been through.
And it's hard to describe a pretty girl,
There're so many levels, but I love the eyes,
Ageless and timeless, they'll never unfurl,
And deeper beauty in honesty lies.
But then I heard they were looking for me,
A posse of postmodern editors,
With their deputy critics after me,
And I saw feminists guarding the doors.
Outnumbered again, couldn't stand my ground,
And then I was gone when she turned around.
But in the East Village, I forget when,
Saw her again, pretty's easy to find,
She couldn't tell--I don't carry a pen,
But I write the poetry in my mind.
And it's funny how someone can hold you,
Without touching, but only with their eyes,
A smile, hearkening back to something true,
Wished I could stay, but I'd blow my disguise.
Then I'm lost--the Soho fog's gotten thick,
My friends all gone, walking night's streets alone,
Where Hope feels like a candle's dying wick,
And on the wind you can hear Faith's voice blown.
She whispers, "my friend, my friend, I believe,
For poetry's death I also do grieve."
And can't you see that it's all connected?
Rhyme, meter, romance, this great New York night,
That when our faith in God is neglected,
Life loses meaning and love becomes trite.
And I know that that was why she told me,
That today's poetry means naught to her,
The elite modern poets think they're free,
But life's a prison without honest prayer.
Then it's midnight, drinking wine with dinner,
With two pretty girls from Mississippi,
Then it's 3 A.M., and she's sitting near,
On a piano bench in the City.
And I dared not speak when she leaned too close,
Played Pachabel's Canon, maintained my pose.
I think I saw a ring on her finger,
Felt the romance of what would never be,
And how those we never kiss can linger,
The lost moment becomes eternity.
It was just before dawn when I realized,
That she had never given me her name,
So pretty sleeping, but she was disguised,
In hiding our hearts, we both were the same.
I guess we'd just heard it too many times,
Romance must die so cynicism can live,
Tired of being persecuted for our crimes,
We hid our judgment, asked God to forgive.
"My name's Wyoming," she awoke to say,
Then closed those sky eyes, and drifted away.
Late night Madison Ave. when ghosts arise,
Saw one over St. Patrick's Cathedral,
I ducked in the Waldorf, and closed my eyes,
And the sweet angel, she began to fall.
Followed me into the Helmsley Hotel,
All the extravagance and fineries,
Were a wooden frame to a Southern Belle,
Wearing all black, she could kill with such ease.
When you think of Venus she comes to mind,
And all the Met's paintings--they can't compete,
But I knew, I knew she could make me blind,
To the task I had come here to complete.
I'd learned the art of writing poetry,
To pen rather than touch her mystery.
Stood on her balcony, looking out West,
And she came up behind me, took my hand,
Said she knew the feeling--she couldn't rest,
When there were things she couldn't understand.
From Midtown, I could hear the West calling,
But I don't think it was Silicon Valley,
And in Manhattan the culture was falling,
Resounding throughout Silicon Alley.
And I wasn't all that sure, where to go,
Editors, VCs, they'll never believe,
In anything they don't already know,
But I knew, I knew it was time to leave.
And in the dawn's fog, I saw three tall masts,
He who signs aboard shall be he who lasts.
And the great ship docked on her balcony,
Flying a skull'n'bones, armed to the teeth,
I climbed aboard, and Wyoming joined me,
Headed West as New York awoke beneath.
And though I'd come to talk to editors,
It'd turned out I just didn't have the time,
To walk the fog down there, knocking on doors,
I'd been too busy dancing with New York's rhyme.
And so often it is that when we roam,
The new sights are things we see in ourselves,
It's on the road that we finally find home,
The poems in her heart were but closed books on shelves.
In silicon I saw eternity,
And the Jolly Roger--she set us free.
A lot of editors seem to be
carrying a lot of baggage as of late. What it is is the internet
economy--it's getting everyone a little nervous. She's still working in
the old publishing industry where you don't get stock options or anything,
and even though most stock options are only part of a high-tech pyramid
scheme, it doesn't matter, 'cause a lot of the agents and editors are a
little bit nervous about what the technology implies about their role as
the middlemen beneficiaries of postmodernism's crumbling infrastructure.
A lot of them are discovering that recommendations from Toni Morrison
don't mean a whole lot when linux and poetry are both open and free upon
the wondrous internet.
They're pretty tricky in New York, and
they market their fundamental hypocrisy as your cynicism, although it is
not cynical to not buy what hucksters are trying to sell you--it's common
sense. So anyway, they're all a little bit nervous these days, and that's
why I invited the editor to come and kick back at The Jolly Roger Piano
Pub--hell--I'd even play her some Bob Seger after hours, but she had that
postmodern attitude going, that she was on the inside, and I was on the
outside, which is what postmodernism is all about, and of course she was
waking up to the fact that there wasn't anything on the inside except for
David Foster Wallace's creative writing assignments, so she was naturally
having second thoughts. And I hope she keeps having them, because I have
faith that we can appeal the better angels of their nature, that we can
yet get them to share in the renaissance--there's always room for a few
extra hands to swab the deck. For in the end, all human beings want their
lives to matter in God's eyes.
