Peter Norman
PARADISE GLIMPSED
A demon has consumed the moon's broad beams
And swallowed us in silence. Now my mind
Unravels and I sleep. Swaddled in dreams,
I stumble through an empty chamber, blind,
Where dark and light are unified by lack
Of vision; where I Am and I Am Not
Are one. The walls are painted a bright black,
Though color cannot be. Feeling and thought,
Bickering foes, here intermingle; hate
Embraces love; exuberance weds grief;
United thus, these nemeses create
A dizzying suspension of belief.
Then dawn intrudes, resurfacing my brain,
And opposites are opposite again.
OLD FRIEND
When the examiner peels back the skin
In two flaps, each secured with a steel pin,
I am there
Grinning from gray gullet as you peer in.
When the soot flakes of dusk air
Settle, and shapes you cannot identify
Whisper and pass by,
I move among them. I wear
A shifting coat of fog, a black tie.
When you traverse a silent corridor
Where curtains brush against the floor
In tattered strands,
And at its terminus a molding door
Hangs by a hinge: I stand
There beyond, in the unseen room.
I light my pipe against the gathering gloom,
Waving the match dead with a pale hand.
BOLSHEVIK TENNIS!
Haul down the nets. Erase the painted lines
That separate the people from the court.
Blot out every logo: thwart the designs
Of those who would make profit of the sport.
Let service serve; let ranking be repealed.
Cast off your bourgeois white; dress up in red.
Put down the racket you were taught to wield
And raise the racket of revolt instead.
Dethrone the umpire and his random will—
His proclamations have been foul indeed!
Let each man play according to his skill;
Let each man score according to his need.
And some day yet, we shall be free of score:
Love will serve love—game, set and evermore.
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