Monday Poem

Old Movies

Screw physics!
days gain speed,
no doubt —

this ellipse is being spun post haste,
the moon almost cannot keep up,
solar winds rush through my hair,
its thin ends whip around the sun
in tender furies

the leaves of months are ripped as they were in old films
suggesting passing time with bygones overlaid,
accelerating as strips of perforated cellulose fly by,
each frame a day, sometimes so fast
this car's momentary wheels spin back
like buckboard spokes and Model-As
—its scenes collect on a reel of years
much closer to its hub than I am now
on the fringes of a still unknown galaxy
whose recollected hurricanes of breath and dust
now seem more like flurries

still clinging to its spiral tip
someday I'll lose this grip
and slip beyond the lip
of breath and worries
.

by Jim Culleny
10/12/14