The Sciences Sing a Lullabye

1948 –

Physics says: go to sleep. Of course
you're tired. Every atom in you
has been dancing the shimmy in silver shoes
nonstop from mitosis to now.
Quit tapping your feet. They'll dance
inside themselves without you. Go to sleep.

Geology says: it will be all right. Slow inch
by inch America is giving itself
to the ocean. Go to sleep. Let darkness
lap at your sides. Give darkness an inch.
You aren't alone. All of the continents used to be
one body. You aren't alone. Go to sleep.

Astronomy says: the sun will rise tomorrow,
Zoology says: on rainbow-fish and lithe gazelle,
Psychology says: but first it has to be night, so
Biology says: the body-clocks are stopped all over town
and
History says: here are the blankets, layer on layer, down and down.

Photographs of the Interiors of Dictators' Houses

It's as if every demon from hell with aspirations

toward interior design flew overhead and indiscriminately

spouted gouts of molten gold, that cooled down

into swan-shape spigots, doorknobs, pen-and-inkwell sets.

A chandelier the size of a planetarium dome

is gold, and the commodes.

Albert Goldbarth

2012

How Simile Works

The drizzle-slicked cobblestone alleys 
of some city; 
                      and the brickwork back 
of the lumbering Galapagos tortoise 
they'd set me astride, at the "petting zoo"....

The taste of our squabble still in my mouth 
the next day; 
                      and the brackish puddles sectioning 
the street one morning after a storm....

So poetry configures its comparisons.

Albert Goldbarth

2009

Units

We could say that Rembrandt was a greater painter than Kandinsky. We could not say that Rembrandt was three and a half times better than Kandinsky. . . . We could say, “I have more pain than I had yesterday.” When we tried to say, “I have nine dols of pain,” we found we were talking nonsense. —Leshan and Morgenau

Albert Goldbarth

2007

Poems

The Sciences Sing a Lullabye

More by this poet

Photographs of the Interiors of Dictators' Houses

How Simile Works

Units

Poems

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The Sciences Sing a Lullabye

More by this poet

Photographs of the Interiors of Dictators' Houses

How Simile Works

Units

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