The Average Heart
Lao Tzu/Roy Orbison
Spring
Sailing to Nowhere
No one ever wrote a poem about the middle,
Because the middle is elusive and good.
A father asks his daughter’s husband
Whether or not things are going well…
Yes, the husband says, and leaves that man’s
House, while a sudden fondness,
Inextricable and naïve,
Stirs in the average, lovely heart,
Made stable by varied weather,
Consistent in its inconsistency.
No one writes about the middle,
It is elusive and good.
And the average heart says to itself,
If this does not work out,
It does not matter…
For it has already and has abided
For some time, and here are lovely
Snowflakes falling beneath the sun.
And the choked, instable heart
Longs for something it cannot
Or will not name. This passes
And once again we are in the middle
Of the middle, where things are safe
And lovely and good.
On a black road I
Burned a copy of the Tao,
Your favorite book.
Before the fire,
You were betrayed & sickened,
You left me crying…
Crying over you.
And so I will always be
Crying over you…
Forgive the river,
The trees are quite terrible
And you keep yelling
Pedigrees and such.
Woman, whose daughter were you?
I cannot name this…
With sunglasses on,
I sing for the drowned & the damned,
Fumbling for words,
My shoe polish hair,
Obscure as my Chevrolet,
’57 – flat black –
Begging the question,
What to croon about now, dear,
Near the escape route?
An epoch sulks between those ruinous months
When the man willed himself to smile.
You found the newness of the grin odd-
One part joy, the remainder, like vox populi, volatile.
Perhaps he takes a drink too much.
Perhaps he’s his own camp with marching orders & a grave.
Perhaps, perhaps the adversary whispers,
The lisp from Bronze Age Palestine.
Still, the cherry trees were blown and they sang –
And you loved the man who waltzed in showers.
And the murders his mind once made, and the broken eyes
Are turning, here & there – to flowers.
No need for Greek words,
No need of Latin tongues or fire saints
Or even the useless Will.
An adaptation or genetic tick –
Errors dwindle in my thirty-first year –
Nearing the age of reason,
Vinyl records humming,
The mind written on a script.
Hunting girls, burning pretty books,
Repenting never. I am ready for the good night
And the good country where
The old are able still…
I am not a bird made to sing to young
Ears stuffed with silk…
And, no. No records to sing about.
No gold records left.
Raphael Maurice is a student of philosophy at Saint Louis University.
