The Minister of Inaction (poem)

Posted by ractrose on 9 Feb 2021 in Art, Poems

The minister of inaction

Keeps perch en pointe, soft chamois slippers toe the orb

That bald pate of Oz, antiquity’s ruler-deity

Admired with gentle pity by explorers

Dust devil sands have scoured him to ivory

Your hope in stealing close to shelter from the dreary sun

Curled to a ball in the cavern

of the monumental nostril

Is to make your petitioning steps disturb

Grain by grain, only, pittering a limited

Release of sound that can’t be shocking

Therefore, hearing, he may climb down

He has been known, when falling

To snuff, hitting earth, into invisibility

or whirl off inside the funnel

The funnel of some great engine

Towers canting, tiny cinders tout calamity

Parachute to light the house-tops

With a wink of orange

Unseasonable changes in velocity

Shudder into fissures already formed

Flatten yourself against the cornerstone

While concreted facing-work comes down

Stories come down from distant places

Where buses and marches searing heat and inundation

Bearing death in life

and asking

can a stranger suffer

not as you