WASTIN’ TIME
WASTIN’ TIME
by Mark Sargent
“Waiting is addictive.” Javier Marías
I don’t have to do
what ten people tell me to,
I’m just sittin’ on a chair by the fire
watchin’ the time slowly expire.
Inventing the real, if you will,
susceptible to stimulation,
the excitatory traces flickering—
sunlight in wood released and venting
upward into the big empty
which is full to bursting and
stifling a yawn over our
pleasure gestures and craving—
the temporariness…
*
In the attic is a magpie’s den
where the totems are stored,
inventoried, replaced.
Magpie talks an order-less list
chak-chak, chak-chak, but pipes
when breeding as do females of the
sub-Dorian Tayegetan Tor, who
tend to be confident and perky when
they descend to the Lakonian lowlands
in late Winter for rough wet mating
in the reed beds along the Evrotas.
I have heard them there and oft thought
the need of that call sings to few.
Do other birds even note?
I merely listen, a creature who
pauses to consider: the terrain, the weather,
the lubricant moment, the authenticity
of desire.
*
For everything is invented, wrenched
from confusion rather than comprehension,
from sensory scramble and the logic of roulette,
but what is the word for it? Sponk?
Ruminate? Gadzooks? Kebab?
“Marriage is a narrative institution.” Javier Marías
Xtreme prolapsus.
Not fitting anywhere,
a herniated squeeze, rupture push
air pressure manipulate.
Who belongs where they are?
And how? How belong?
To be the property of your environment
especially as appendage,
how does that work?
But there’s no truth to it,
what you see about you,
you’re seconds and years late
and everything is altered
from your most recent invention.
*
Out the window there is a large flock of sheep
and they are staring up at me, waiting
for a word or a song, a puzzle
to set their wee minds a whirl.
Mmmaaaaaaaaahhhhh, baaabatta mah
bada bada baaaaaahhhhh mabah mabah bah!
It’s tough scatting in sheep, try it, and even
if you were good at it the sheep wouldn’t give a shit.
Actually, that’s all they give,
but it doesn’t appear to be conscious,
just dribbles out of their ass,
it’s a grasp to consider it applause.
*
Take some paint and a brush
and go outside and paint a rock,
any old stone will do.
Now observe as the elements have
their way with the paint.
They ain’t in a hurry,
everything advances the dissolution
and it is all hinged on time.
Now take the ‘t’ outta paint.
The Buddhists tell us that attachment/desire
is the core cause of suffering
and you don’t need to be a lama
to sort the truth of that.
What I’ve found is
that if you pay attention
the sufferings of a lifetime
tend to burn away desire
and leave the rock, the stone
the material thing.
Rock, weather,
it’s not about choice.
I can’t rue what ten people tell me to
so I guess I’ll remain this tame,
sittin’ on a chair by the fire
watchin’ the long slow burn of desire.