LAMENTATIONS

by David Eide

When unstructured events enter the poet thousands of anonym nous souls can hide. Voices emerge that startle the poet; images dance from sapient buildings, papers are filled with useless information that the poet savors.

Progress is a weapon of war? Demons of nature fly with glee from the satiated at the approach of war. Nhen nothing leaps outside the dance of death, the poet surges and finds keys to his own prison. He opens it and shows the people freedom until they are angry and demand accountability. 'Those who are conscious of the reasons for war do not take up its cause.'

The mind, bored with domesticity, wills itself toward a leveling day. The poet covers his ears and crawls into bed

When the poet feels he is banished from the normal cycles of economy and politics he observes those cycles with an eye to the future. Something runs downward on the aspirations of the peo- ple. Yet, happily, the future Is omnipresent in the poets mind. It is a sort of courage.

The cycles whir with increasing speed, with a taunting power that condemns the poet in the tracks of his liveliest dream. In a strange way he assumes many problems since he has no specific stake in the outcomes of the various cycles.

The poet loves what the world destroys and embraces it all, the firmer as the world grows its wild teeth. Peoples and habi- tats are assailed by the cycles that scythe through the muse and sends her screaming down the bloody corridors of helpless time, past the undisturbed crowds pushing their way to buy things. No amount of cajoling can empty them of their desires. No amount of prayer will release them from their daily business and knowledge that they are condenned to live this way and no other.

Yet, the beauty o£ things appear to hin at a propitious moment. That beauty taunts strolling, pragmatic wonen who carry papers in their teeth and who give birth to monstrosities they dream about while overlooking the thriving and crippled city.