Two Poems
by Frederick Pollack
Heart of the Flame
The alchemist is about to pour
a tincture of sulfur
and sprinkle shavings of antimony.
It is the crucial moment. On it
(or rather on the gold that should appear)
depends his continued existence where
the town meets the mud of the river
beneath the keep of the impoverished Duke.
But now from the fire a hiss
extols antimony for its vital uses
in circuitboards, nuclear weapons, infantwear,
night-vision goggles, etc.
The alchemist drops his alembic.
In the pan, suffused with flame, an emerald
salamander writhes. “Thou art the ruin
of all my hopes,” the alchemist says. “Thou art,”
replies the beast, “a tall grey cone
composed of rags, hair, stink, and pointed hat.”
It proceeds to tell him more about
the future: the nature of matter, rise
of science, the folly in which he has spent his life.
Little gets through. The alchemist identifies
the salamander with specific demons;
it yawns. “Do you enjoy,” asks the human,
“pulling godfearing men into your element?”
“What element do you live in?” it asks.
“Truth,” says the alchemist. “Feed me
a pinch of it,” begs the beast. “With your bare hands.”
Rapid Eye Movement
To go beyond decadence is to sing
stagnation. To walk for leagues beside
a bulging bowed unmortared weedy
millennial stone wall. But the people
you meet on that walk, who tip their low
proletarian caps and bonnets at you, aren’t
bigots. Churches you pass, whatever their claims
to power, have none; bald heads within
spend all their time inventing alibis
for their principal. Things have gotten as far
as hygiene and slow locomotives; there are
also firm and mostly triumphant
feminists. Uneven and combined development!
Their maps circle the sun but show no empires.
To sing stagnation is to jeer
those creatures of our world who wish
to speed the Singularity, when,
presumably encased in silicon,
they will reign among the dead.
Let it be clear: these others know they stagnate.
Philosophy discusses little else,
and, as is proper, comes to no conclusion.
Their space program consists of a treaty of friendship
that should remain in a vault till aliens come,
while progress in the sciences consists
in an improvement of sensual enjoyment:
multiple, each night, for everyone.
BIO: Author of two book-length narrative poems: The Adventure and Happiness (both Story Line Press; the former reissued 2022 by Red Hen Press), and four collections of shorter poems: A Poverty of Words, (Prolific Press, 2015), Landscape of Mutant (Smokestack Books, UK, 2018), The Beautiful Losses (Better Than Starbucks Books, 2023), and The Liberator (Survision Books, 2024). Pollack has appeared in Poetry Salzburg Review, The Fish Anthology (Ireland), Magma (UK), Bateau, Fulcrum, Chiron Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, etc. Online, poems have appeared in Big Bridge, Hamilton Stone Review, BlazeVox, The New Hampshire Review, Mudlark, Rat’s Ass Review, Faircloth Review, Triggerfish, etc. Website: www.frederickpollack.com.