THE ANGEL OF REALITY
errol miller
“I am the angel of reality.”
- Wallace Stevens
These things which we do not know
referred to a higher order in the tragic defense
of age, posthumous culture it was
that gave us running bulls and dorsal fins
and bubonic symbols past the shrouded lighthouse
I cry for all of us stoned on ignorance
these nights I am at my bay window watching
an armada of flesh and bone, necessary journeys
in the celestial light of Now, what we need
is a map to Star City, more beer and red wine
there was a time when all the world
seemed like San Diego, awash with ocean-spray
in a golden moment of sunset, then
the purple haze of twilight came, and autumn’s chill
an immense solitary voice demanding things
in their demure places, traveling up the coast
to Leucadia there was another time, another place
stripped to necessities, full of blackness and fear
an enormous half-moon sputtered overhead
and drunken mushroom people floundered
on feather beds in cheap motels
reading “The Bell Jar” and “Paradise Lost”
they lived on the fringe in temporary housing
they played blue guitars of loneliness
until everything was an illusion, in
the dawning of the New Age there was hope
fluffy omelets and raisin toast and coffee
and later in the day, a lot of loving
these pristine narrative verses of fiction
so many roomers still asleep, so many
colossal sons and daughters
cloistered close to seashore, far
from the maddening crowd but alone in
an emotional deaf-mute sanctuary
lacking expression, destined for isolation
in a city of disparate angels
void of avant-garde poetics, and hope.
