Tuesday, July 17, 2018

Poem for Tuesday and National Aquarium

Island
By Greg Wrenn

I took the night train there,
never dreaming.
To cross the straits
my boxcar crept onto a barge—there was screeching,
several tremendous thuds,
then with a growl
we sailed.
I was already half-awake,
anxious for a volcano, neolithic shrines,
islands to explore
off the main island…
At my stop,
early morning’s tarnish
fell on a shuttered newspaper stand
and torn campaign posters.
A child playing near a livestock car
sang about a weapon
detonated in another nation,
another hemisphere.

From the station
and the song,
I walked up the mountain road
to a garden where grizzly men with camera phones
greeted me, sleep still
in the corners of their eyes,
bougainvillea around their tents.
I was to be eternalized
and therefore loved.
They waxed my nose
and powdered my nether regions.
After oatmeal and coffee,
I was Jupiter’s—
his bardash, his
Ganymede, ningle, ingle,
trug—bracing
against a Doric column.

I felt numb a night later as rosemary blew through the lava fields.

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I didn't do anything on Monday that wasn't a chore (besides having an egg bagel in between shopping stops) until dinnertime, apart from watching the traitor in chief commit treason in Russia but if Republicans didn't care enough to remove him over children in cages, I doubt this will make the slightest impact after an initial tantrum or two. We watched the Home Run Derby, which was very fun because it was at Nationals Park and Bryce Harper won, and this week's Elementary, which made me happy because it implied that Moriarty will be back before the series finale. I'm sure I had more interesting things to say but diatomaceous earth has rotted my brain, so here are some photos from the National Aquarium last weekend:

DSCN8764

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DSCN8759

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2018-07-14 16.18.26

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