LAMENTATIONS

by David Eide

The people have learned to be suspect of fearless men who wander on the outside, observing the acts of the city.

"I am a pertinent ass, people," he says. "I don't fear what I perceive. Those cylindrical buildings, those old universities, those haptic planes, those gliding ships, that sky, that sun, that universe; why should I fear these things? The only thing I fear is your natures when I perceive them rightly. But even that I share with you."

He thinks, "I am fearless but can not sing the joy I have at the feeling."

And women prefer moneyed men to fearless men. And women are driven by the weight of the culture rather than its aspiration.

A happy time is about to descend on the poet and he steadies himself. Happiness drives out the need to express himself but the failure to express himself makes him unhappy.

He writes through the gargantuan petals of a flower he has seen in the kitchen of a woman who tells him he reads too much. Lingering associations connect the woman and an object she holds behind the flower. He writes though the background noise of news commercials and an official who tells everyone to stay indoors. He writes thinking of the rays of Antares.