The Real Turtle Soup

It's only a paper-mache

moon, they say, too cool, 

too full of interstellar space

to sympathize or stress about

lovers, kings and fools.

Or is it? According to Deutsch

the so-called final ignition

into outer space

is a product of man's meditations

moving, as if via gravitation

the magician to the other end

of the expanding universe. Sure, 

in yr computer. Meanwhile, nursed

in a nursing home, mewling and peeing

as accurately predicted by Shakespeare

my old Marine, an ex-sailor, bitter

at life's ending, waited

too long to dispatch with dignity.

All alone, as in Corbiere's poem,

old soldiers are fated

to fight unnecessary wars

as we all are. Except for the fact that

every helium and hydrogen atom

ever born or made (whatever you believe) 

has taken positions, passionate

and predetermined as republicans and dobermans

over eons and epochs. Thus

I don't think it behooves us much to care

if we're getting too little clean air or

bacteria are better adapted than us. This

obsession with identity, survival

a name and a leg of lamb is lame

even uninspired. The entire universe

including the professional baseball season

is canceled when yr dead. No blame.

Author's Note

"Is it the good turtle soup or merely the mock?" --Cole Porter