In the heart of the downtown section, a stretch of cobblestone streets:
they stop motorists from gunning through them at full throttle.
Don’t put the cart before the horse, don’t jump from the frying
pan into the fire: in other words, don’t go at full throttle.
Who finds caution in the wind? Who gleans the stitches
from the timid rhyme? Not the young, going at full throttle.
In the school parking lot, I skirt the second speed bump when I can. They’re there
for a reason, says the youngest daughter: to keep you from going full throttle.
On my bookshelf is a History of Doubt, filled with stories of ancient thinkers and
medieval cynics: anyone who might have said Not so fast, not at full throttle.
Who pays heed anymore? Three birds in succession thunk against the glass. Which
one is pursuer, which pursued? Danger and excitement. Dance at full throttle.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- Ciphers
- Preces
- Rest Stop
- Presentiment
- Ghazal, Between the Lines
- Ghazal, Beaded with Rain
- Night Heron, Ascending
- Derecho Ghazal
- Mid-year Ghazal
- Punctuation
- Mortal Ghazal
- Landscape, with Chinese Lanterns
- After
- Charmed Life
- Undone
- Index
- What We’ll Remember
- Amarillo
- Ghost of a pulse in the throat
- Throttle Ghazal
- Visitations
- Of Nectar
- Preliminaries
- To/For
- Capriccio
- Getting There
- Four-Way Stop
- Vortex
- Flood Alphabet
- Tokens
- The hummingbird isn’t the only bird
- A hawk circles over the ridge
- Rather than the tightening fist,
- Reversed Alphabet of Rain
- Cocoon
- Manifest
- (poem temporarily hidden by author)
- Intertext
- Letter, to Order
- Telenovela
- Retrospective
- Breve
- Pumapatak*
- There’s a bird that comes
- Spore
- September 1972
- Fire Drill
GETTING OUT TO GET IN
Who pays heed anymore? Three birds in succession thunk against the glass. Which/ one is pursuer, which pursued? Danger and excitement. Dance at full throttle.—From “Throttle Ghazal” Luisa A. Igloria, Via Negativa, 07-19-12
One way of the other, we will get out to get in.
There are no borders here, nor limits, no doors
To slam. I am my own clay, brittle now, but I
Will mould myself any which way I am pleased
To behold as my own creation, not in the image
Of someone who chooses to be absent or gone.
But who cares anymore? There are no measures
Nor beats I must march by, breathe by. I am free,
Am I not, to perish any which way I live or err?
Like my own moulder, shape or reshape my face
The way I want to meet all the same faces I meet,
And I will be my own healer, my last and final god.
Idle now, I am meant to dance at full throttle.
One way or the other, I will get in before I get out.
—Albert B. Casuga
07-23-12