Escher, The Calendar, and The Sea, Retreating

May 11, 2008

Describe for me that moment when the Escher moves,
when the black and the white slip
and you see the hidden,
realize it was as close to you as back and front.

Negative/Positive strobe effect.

Janus was killed by a glancing blow
to the side of his head- a traitors death.
He had two mouths, no one could ever believe him
so he rarely spoke.
He saw past and future, but now escaped him.
So he escaped us.

February comes from februa- purification, but also febrile,
feverish. Fertility, from being struck by thongs of ramskin.
I wish I could believe in that.
Wish it was so simple.

Accept what is, the line ran
until the tide swept in
and melted the words and the sea swept the sand
and scoured everything to virgin cleanliness.

What is? That means nothing or anything, I raged,
I could search from hell to heaven
and never find that answer.

And the broken lips of Janus whisper,
a sussuration like the water draining back from the sand,
that a result is not always the point of the search
that he loves me still,
but I don’t know which lips he’s using.