States of Matter (trilogy)

[Lightning Rod]

States of Matter
(trilogy)

i.

nothing lies like ice
all motion stops
as we approach absolute zero
even the truth is put on hold

nonsense beware!
lies are frozen as the lips of my love
the deep-freeze of affection
and frigid rejection

"don't make fun of me", she said
"i don't have to," said he

The arctic bed makes me pray for global warming
I light match after match just to burn carbon
and wish for the greenhouse effect
I wish
I pray
I genuflect

ii.

all that boils soon freezes
and all that freezes melts
there's science in the difference
'tween how we feel and how we felt

we will work our squared equation
the matter doesn't matter but the energy
some say it rises from below
some say it settles from above
the larger force or the smaller force?
in some religions they call it love

Time forever moves along
from steam to stream to glacier
man will wear it like a hat
but it's in a woman's nature
he will call it this or that
she has sterner nomenclature

iii.

Water is an H2Ho
she will take any shape
tall as a bottle, flat as a puddle
she conforms to gutter spouts and douche bags
sewer pipes and cesspools

the ocean is a salty old hag
it takes beaches to confine her bitchiness
she'll throw a hurricane just because it's a hot day

She has some success with floods
and she wears typhus, cholera and malaria well
sure, she can carve a canyon or cook up a mudslide
what would waterboarding be without her? but
she can go from geiser to glacier in a heartbeat

When she freezes up on you, that's when the trouble really starts
you're up to your ass in a snowdrift trying to dig your way to the woodpile
or
your new Mercedes is parked in the driveway and golfballs start raining from the sky
or
you're having supper on the Titanic when you suddenly feel a lurch

the icicle is the perfect murder weapon
it can't decide whether to freeze or flow but when
it punctures the heart it melts with no fingerprints
and it's soluble in blood. Water is the perfect crime.
She's an H2Ho.

[sweetwater]

the self as irony