The man in the moon was better not a man.
Think, sad Raymond, how you glare across
the sea, hating the invisible near east
and your wife’s hysteria. You’ll always be here,
rain or gloom, painting a private Syria,
preferred dimensions of girls. Outside, gulls
scar across your fantasy. Rifled spray on glass
unfocuses the goats you stock on the horizon,
laddering blue like dolphins, looping over the sun.
Better the moon you need. Better not a man.
Sad Raymond, twice a day the tide comes in.
Envy your homemade heroes when the tide is low,
laughing their spades at clams, drinking a breezy beer
in breeze from Asia Minor, in those far far
principalities they’ve been, their tall wives elegant
in audience with kings. And envy that despairing man
you found one morning sobbing on a log,
babbling about a stuffed heart in Wyoming.
Don’t think, Raymond, they’d respond to what’s
inside you every minute, crawling slow as tide.
Better not tell them. Better the man you seem.
Sad Raymond, twice a night the tide comes in.
Think once how good you dreamed. The way you hummed
a melody from Norway when that summer storm
came battering the alders, turning the silver
underside of leaves toward the moon. And think,
sad Raymond, of the wrong way maturation came.
Wanting only those women you despised, imitating
the voice of every man you envied. The slow walk
home alone. Pause at door. The screaming kitchen.
And every day this window, loathing the real horizon.
That’s what you are. Better the man you are.
Sad Raymond, twice a day the tide comes in.
All’s in a name. What if you were Fred. Then none
of this need happen. What, sad Raymond, if
in your will you leave your tongue and tear ducts
to a transplant hospital. There’s your motive
for trailing goats to Borneo, goats that suddenly
are real, outdistancing the quick shark
in the quarter mile and singing Home Sweet Home.
Motive, but no blood. Sad. Sad. The salty fusillade
obscures once more your raging playfield.
Better behind the glass. Better the man you were.
Sad Raymond, twice a night the tide comes in.
Sad Raymond, twice a lifetime the tyrant moon
loses control. Tides are run by starfish
and those charts you study mornings on your wall
are meaningless as tide. The near east isn’t near
or east and Fred was an infant in your neighborhood
devoured by a dog. Those days you walk the beach
looking for that man who’s pure in his despair.
He’s never there. A real man walks the moon
and you can’t see him. The moon is cavalier.
Better to search your sadness for the man.
Sad Raymond, twice a moment tides come in.