BURGOO

Semper Paratus

Here, present, ready in the ready room.
Our time is devoted to preparation,
disciplined routine, habitual watchfulness.
We are poised, adrenaline neatly coiled
for the challenge. We expect injury or bliss.

We are set to slip instantly into times
when all we know, all we are,
is the pure attention to our task,
moment after perfect moment
with no road forward and no path back.

We are standing by, coffee on,
insurance paid, belts tensioned,
latest critical updates installed.
We are ready, scanning the perimeter.
Bring it on. Your move.

We are ready to hold the fort or sally forth.
Our reaction will be swift. We are ready
for some football, for financial security.
We are ready to rumble, ready
for the winter white sale.

We can pick it up, fix it, oil it, shovel it.
We are on the edge of our seats,
leather jackets and fleece,
flicking away butt after butt,
our throats parched, watching, listening.

We never think ‘what if it doesn’t come.’
It will come, unexpectedly.
Except that we do expect it.
We have scoped the area ahead of time.
We have the drop on it.

Our tanks are filled. We have slept well.
We can hold our breath a long time.
We have all the supplies, all the spares.
We have cut into the restraints so that they
will give way instantly at one determined swipe.

~~~~~~~~~~

Douglas Logan

Digitalis

With GPS and text and tweet,
with Google search and Google maps
and zoomed-in views of every street
and all those other handy apps;

with 3G here and Wi-Fi there
and data packets streaming past
and Bluetooth transfer everywhere
and all the wikis filling fast,

we need no longer memorize
or plan, or wait, or understand;
we merely have to energize
and tap a screen with each demand.

Why trouble much to learn or know
more than the flick of find and fetch,
and where electric sockets grow,
and how far charging cords will stretch?

A comfort of our own kind around,
we stoke the rumors that we heed
and spurn all those who would confound
the dogged dogmas that we breed.

Connections thought to interrelate
but made in bilious density
turn out instead to separate,
fanning passionate intensity.

Not touching things that might leave scars,
not caring what disturbs and scares,
we're safe and svelte in cyber bars,
death dealt by joystick from our chairs.

Recall the brilliant foxglove plant
which tamed will tame the frantic heart,
but taken raw will trip a rant,
then stupefy and tear apart.

~~~~~~~~~~

Douglas Logan

Digitalis also appears in Yaakov Murchada.

On Liberty

Old dog whining through the fence,
on the neighbor’s porch, tied up.
Bumblebee in the sultry barn
bashing hard against the glass.
I collect the tired bee between
my junk mail and a paper cup
and send it out, rapping its ass
with the flick of a flyer
and watch it weave away.
“Don’t be a dumb bee.”

I go next door and talk to the dog.
"Briggs," says I, "it's the nature
of things sometimes.
Don't tug at the chain too much.
Just live the good life in your mind."
In my hand I see the flyer
with which I schooled the bee:
a vinyl siding deal, a missing child,
and if you buy a sandwich
you get another free.

~~~~~~~~~~

Douglas Logan

Lion

I am wondering about the lion
you see in pictures and at the zoo,
who is a time-worn lion, even having left
his share of the running and killing to
lionesses, lighter and more intent.

The lion lies arranged upon a rock
or curled, tail twitching, in the dirt,
or stands a while, back sagging,
staring off into the middle distance
or pacing a bit, back and forth,

forth and back, and you notice
that he is a trifle gaunt,
dust flying from his shaken mane,
with flies in his eyes, and fleas,
and something painful in his paw.

You could suppose,
zoo or no zoo, that this lion
is witnessing most of what he knows
thinning, drying, blurring in the air.
But who can say what a lion considers.

There is something still sovereign
in the way he paces back and forth,
forth and back, with the big pads
of his forepaws placed and placed again,
splaying on his footholds.

Whatever he had to give, he has given:
voice, vigil, hunch of haunch. The trails
are worn, the prey agile, fast, or unfamiliar.
The sun is warm, the smooth stone shaded,
the arid season surrounds him,

and so I am wondering
whether these flies that plague his eyes
in ways that would craze a beast less simplified
are in fact easily tolerated as they carry off
the moisture of his unblinking gaze.

~~~~~~~~~~

Douglas Logan

Scandal

The sis
The auntie the sis
The sin the sis

Less of More: A Conservation Grid

More	Go	Do	Less	Get	Have
Go	Do	More	Get	Have	Less
Do	More	Go	Have	Less	Get
Less	Get	Have	More	Go	Do
Get	Have	Less	Go	Do	More
Have	Less	Get	Do	More	Go