ONE SIDE OF MY FACE

ONE SIDE OF MY FACE

One side of my face what the world

looks like on the inside,

a mindscape I’m walking through

that changes shape whenever I do.

And the other just a clay bust of the moon

that somebody keeps working on

like erosion in Death Valley.

But tonight I’m tired

of looking for signs of life

where there are none.

The air is as smudged with cigarette smoke

as the dirty winter windows

I’m staring numbly through are.

Infra red aura of the town lights

reflected off the big-bellied clouds

as if something were burning

across the highway as those

who are awake yet listen

to the Doppler Effect of the sirens

to know if they’re still safe or not.

A pastel green wall

through an open window

across the street from here.

But I haven’t seen anybody in it

for nearly a year since I moved in here

where every second thought

ends in so what ?

Like a cynical kind of cowboy zen

that’s had it up to the proverbial

with koans and haikus

that provide you with spurs to enlightenment

but no winged horse

that isn’t already a corpse

lying by the side of the road like roadkill.

My mind soars like a turkey-vulture

when my heart

wants to swim like a swan

down river with the stars of the Milky Way

as I did one suicidal May in a six man raft

with no rudder or guide

in the spring run off of the Ottawa River

to raise money for

the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario.

But the cheap thrill

of risking my life for virtue

has worn off like chalk on a pool cue

and if light is the function

of the body of the lamp

right now I feel like

a blackhole with a bad complexion

that’s gone snowblind

in the glare of a computer screen.

I figure if I stare back long enough

sooner or later

one of us is going to blink

and discover what’s on the other side

of what the other one thinks

it’s looking at

when it puts an hourglass

up to its eye like a telescope

to know what time it is

and how many light years there are

between solitude and exile.

Between staying in and going out.

The tin gas pipes crackle

like ice breaking underfoot

or a bird in the chimney

trying to peck its way out

of a black cosmic eggshell

that’s as starless as hell on the inside

and tarred and feathered on the other,

assuming, of course,

it ever does crack the koan

in the liberty bell of enlightenment

and emerge with the wingspan of a dragon

into a room full of cigarette smoke

and patchouli incense

rising like the ghost of a white horse

as if someone who just fell off

the cutting edge of the flat earth

were trying to get on again like Icarus

waning in a wax museum on the moon.

PATRICK WHITE