Author of the Month: John Thieme

* Author of the Month *

John Thieme

Tempests

Narcissistic poets of the arbitrary,
for centuries they skirted seashores,
flirting lasciviously with the fragile hemlines
of landlocked maidens, chastened by their belts.
But now these fickle libertines
are drawn to fields exhausted by uncaring fumes.
They strive to penetrate unpapered former forests,
their lust unquenched by swamping fertile plains.
Reckless servants of a gambled carbon chance,
they level playing fields, raise roofs and flatten earth.
In former times they whispered courtship,
with warm plantation chaff upon their breath,
windborne jets of streaming passion from the Gulf.
They promised future-tense engagements,
but now those worn-out ways have been abandoned,
like the tattered remnants of a shipwrecked sailor’s shirt.
Unleashing hail
on naked hamlets,
they drown ophelias
in their wanton rain.
Broad-shouldered men build arks of gopher
and hurry zebras up their ramps.
Sharks give gorillas swimming lessons.
Where costs allow, big cats have them too.
Meteorology floods all the channels.
The world looks upwards for a rainbow;
weatherwomen long for more monsoons.

Setu, April 2018