Words

Some Relative Safety (or What Cassandra Knows) - 130726, Union Hill

Funny how it comes to be this way

and you are asking

“Is this safe?”

when out the window

are glimmers of blue and red

distorted on diner chrome

which would say “Open

Welcome

Come on in”

if you could only see from another angle

But you are welcomed already

and not alone.

And maybe safety rests

within the jaws of shadows

cast from the lights without

because out there is lightning

and out there are thieves

and rain is coming down

Surely there cannot be safe.

But here is together

and you are here

in the safety of a place between

some past and soon present

where you cannot know

how the story unfolds,

that it ends poorly

and with pain

both sudden and slow.

Not tonight, Cassandra.

Tonight you will not sleep

will not dream

and you will not know

what you know.

Instead you will listen

and fall a little deeper in

until even you sweet sibyl

question your voice

become still

rest.

For you are not alone

and this may indeed be safe

In here surely

perhaps out there too

where the lights shine.

So you draw a little closer

almost skin to skin

so your eyes seek the exits

and so you ask again

“Is this safe?”

Seer, who do you query

when you already know

as you walk through the rain

to the car

to the coast

and stand in damp sand

while light streaks the sky

and you wonder if possibly

this might be unsafe.

But you’ve years to go

before you will sleep

and time comes on quickly

and faster it goes

until future present

has also passed on

in accord with the oracle

and here you are there

expectant yet shellshocked

battered and affirmed

knowing you confirmed by ignoring

that the prophecy was true.

Which in the fallout gets you...

...weary satisfaction

and a half jaded smile

and by chance, some time alone

remembering the relative safety

of unknowing the fore-known

in the flicker of red-blue

shone off the future

onto wet pavement

and cheap diner chrome.




-Jn