I HAVE LABOURED LIKE AN ASTROLOGER

I HAVE LABOURED LIKE AN ASTROLOGER

 

I have laboured like an astrologer

for the doomed cosmology

of delusion after delusion

trying to make the stars fit

like jewels of insight

into the webbing

of spider-minded dreamcatchers

that just don’t get it.

First you seed the wind.

And then you bead the wind with apples.

And that’s when I gave up

trying to make starmaps

of the things I’ve seen.

What might have been

isn’t a guide

to what has come to pass.

I’ve stopped lighting white candles

at the black mass of the universe

thinking that might make a difference.

I’ve stopped looking into the lees

of an old love affair

I had with a telescope

like a star-crossed lightbulb

that had just burnt out

like a bad tooth

in the mispelt marquee of a bad movie.

There are no sad or happy endings.

All the pathetic lies come true

and the prophecies take off their masks

like a troupe of skulls at the end of the play

and bow like the good guesses they always were

It’s fun to go slumming in your youth

with bad actors posing for the truth

but eventually your solitude asks you

what you’re going to do for an encore

and the night takes on a whole new attitude

when you realize that Armageddon is you

with a chip on your shoulder

daring the light to knock it off

like loud music after midnight.

Now I can tell anyone’s fortune at a glance.

The future is history. 

You haven’t got a chance.

The fool you are

has arrived in advance

of the fool you’re about to be.

 

PATRICK WHITE