Ce Plus Ne Change Pas
Mar 21 2011 Filed in: Jims Poems
Ce Plus Ne Change Pas
The more things stay the same
The more they change.
Like the stubborn cliff
That will not
Get out of the way
Of the ocean.
Or the long, gray
Changeless winter,
Disguising the hypothermia
Of slumbering spring.
Winter is the heart
That cannot love,
The unspent sperm,
The cold testicle
Lying low.
The dead who lie still
As they gaily putrefy,
The infinite within the infinitesimal,
The seemingly quiet egg,
The still life on the gallery wall,
The glacier roaring down the hill--
Know what I mean.
They stay the same
To disguise change
Until they can spring it on you.
So did that still life on the wall
Move just now? Did that
Dead pheasant or the fruit
So carefully arranged
Move just a bit?
Is not the frame askew?
Can you be sure of it?
The more things stay the same
The more they change.
Like the stubborn cliff
That will not
Get out of the way
Of the ocean.
Or the long, gray
Changeless winter,
Disguising the hypothermia
Of slumbering spring.
Winter is the heart
That cannot love,
The unspent sperm,
The cold testicle
Lying low.
The dead who lie still
As they gaily putrefy,
The infinite within the infinitesimal,
The seemingly quiet egg,
The still life on the gallery wall,
The glacier roaring down the hill--
Know what I mean.
They stay the same
To disguise change
Until they can spring it on you.
So did that still life on the wall
Move just now? Did that
Dead pheasant or the fruit
So carefully arranged
Move just a bit?
Is not the frame askew?
Can you be sure of it?