Freedom Fighter
By Thomas Piekarski
1.
They can’t take it away from you but can take you away with it.
2.
Nothing is useless unless first used up: recycled ideas
not one of our grievances.
3.
Omissions are mine alone. I’m in command of the thing
an ocean gave birth to, that amorphous hermaphrodite.
4.
I once confused chaos with anarchy, but a Facebook friend
clarified: you’ll not have one without the other.
5.
What holds people back is the notion that gravity is fantasy.
6.
Where did I store the information? On a hard drive, my mind,
with this morning’s breakfast? Such are the struggles I work
to resolve, main purpose behind which suggests I have no time
for fretting, trying in vain to vet the so-called facts bombarding
my material world with constant barrages of unintelligible data.
7.
Again and again I fall back on the experiences I cherish most.
I pull them out of my pocket like marbles, or shells collected
along the beach. These are the objects of thought. The light.
8.
Tyranny we accumulate living in a closed system is endless.
9.
Narcissism only gets you so far. At some point one must
throw off the yoke and admit there is no there without air,
water, clouds rolling over snowcaps, expansive valleys
of cedar and pine, vistas further than the whole universe.
10.
I’ll get around to crossing life off the list of things to do.
11.
Best remain in close contact with my indigenous source.
12.
Convention dictates a formal education in compliance
with decorum. But alternate methods may be employed,
such as communication with ancestors alive within walls.
13.
Nothing is easier to take for granted than truth. It’s apparent,
yet differs with every breath, every step, every word.
14.
I became a bit downcast when the storm cut out power
and our building went dark for three days. It suddenly
jolted back on and was like getting sucker punched.
15.
The mercurial bird catches a fish in her flaming beak
and carries it on a voyage toward infinity.
16.
“So we tanned his hide when he died, Clyde,
and that’s it hangin’ on the shed.” Enough said?
17.
Boredom consists of pounding on the doors of infamy,
pleading for remission from massive creative impulses.
18.
It’s one thing to lounge in some imaginary Eden, pining
about the day you got fired, the basement flooded, you
sliced your finger chopping onions, the guy next door
ran away and eloped, income tax delinquent, musing
that those were the good old days.
19.
Evolution takes time, but I’m running out of time,
barely enough left to set democracy straight.
20.
After my grand performance in front of nobody
I was pleased that one hand clapped as opposed to none.
21.
They roiled together on a golden cloud, nude, awakened.
22.
Love can die an ugly death, betrayal chief among causes.
23.
Over the river and through the woods we skipped,
baskets overflowing irises. On Easters we’d wake, dress
in our Sunday best and drive off to church uninhibited.
24.
I wanted to know more about how Earth was made,
but when I dug into it found only a black hole.
25.
We drank and danced, kissed and sang, squeezed,
as though the Bacchanal would never subside.
26.
You said what invaded my imagination isn’t a ghost.
Then what?
27.
The empirical path to subatomic research
runs through fields of entropy.
28.
We all have reputations to uphold. Claude is pea shooter
champion. Maggie has the pink-streaked hair. Dominic
collects stardust in little black vials. Seamus the electrician
never misses an appointment. I got run over and flattened
by a renegade steamroller but don’t tell anyone about it.
29.
Magic isn’t metaphysical and neither is faith.
30.
In this era of rampant change may our souls be kept.
Thomas Piekarski is a former editor of the California State Poetry Quarterly. His poetry has appeared in numerous publications in the U.S. and abroad, including Taj Mahal Review, Poetry Quarterly, Literature Today, Poetry Salzburg and South African Literary Journal. He has published three books of poetry, Ballad of Billy the Kid, Monterey Bay Adventures and Mercurial World.