Ontological Shifts

 

                                                         

                        

Break  Fast

 

 

The table- cloth was a souvenir from Turkey.

It had a very simple olive pattern,

The kind you might find in a good café

Or restaurant where the meals are affordable.

The kind you might find your hands floating over

Stirring spoons of sugar or lifting glasses

And bottles of water and wine, picking up bread

And paper napkins or surely raising to take out

Bank cards, in order to settle the bill.

In order to settle the bill.

 

Hardly is this last phrase out and everything,

The whole panoply of artifacts,

Suddenly is in freefall before you.

Like that last joke you heard before leaving.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Familiar

 

 

Don’t talk to me about storms in teacups,

Speak rather about the dervish in your espresso.

For your idioms and metaphor are tired,

As tired as my crocs worn out from pacing

Over the same old living space. Here, then,

Is where I dwell in both the word and the poem.

And, in memory! The ontological shifts

Which we must surely feel as much as the pedal

Pressing down on the pianoforte sustaining the SOUND

The words vibrating each particular element

Each particular word, key, shape or movement

Given the proper attention it deserves.

Such is modality. Yes, I would speak to you of modality,

And the ontological shifts in taking a coffee!