Published at the online BANG! page of The New Guard Review
1.
This big giving-up is taking place,
and as it does, everything sags:
the eyes. a little deeper in the sockets;
the knees, buckling; even the heels
dragging saddlebags along the ground.
But I refuse to play this game.
I press on, nipples raised in the air
and strong enough to topple generations
of complacency: history melting
in the derelict pastures where it’s been
plowed after another long winter.
Lift those knees high! Advance upon the world,
penis up! Nothing but exclamation points!
I know the sails can fill with air
again. And that there’s a bounty
of life out there beyond the swells and crashing
of surf, beyond the breath of seas pushing
along the balding shorelines.
2.
Rocks may crumble, erode,
ice caps melt and plummet to the waist
of the globe, but somehow we will plant seeds
and ground-cover, roots that will hold
it all together
so that not even a tear will be lost
to entropy, so love will gather
in its firm fortresses of flesh,
in the muscles of the many hearts
that have not given up, that still beckon
to make the timing better, by tightening
belts here and there and roaring
the engines, the chariots at yet another starting
line,
3.
and bodies that still build
after all these years, that cry
into the slap of existence, still trying
to figure it out under the lamp of God—
and blowing kisses, like radio waves
and question marks, into space.
What new light? What arrows
of desire? What bolts will jump-start this new
orgy of grace, this firming
of the belly, this shedding of
the shroud of old and false
prophets from this world
long gone to fat?
Pete Follansbee: Published Poems 