Solstice Slacker

The long-light is leaving, only here for a day;
Shorter, shorter now
While under me the hurling drawer-in
String-tied to the sun runs ahead
Sweeping my year away too
Whether I like it or not

Yes, Geb, good first-born earth,
Burst your arm from the soil
Like the end of a horror movie
And grab my ankle with your grass-hairy mitt--
Take me along so every month before falls further behind,
So every missed key-stroke
And every bad grab at beginning
Dies long ago

What do I know about the Earth moving?
Empirical to me it's not,
Except when I'm stark drunk
And every fluid thought reels real;
I don't even see the stars move anymore.

Ignoring Douglas Spencer, I never watch the skies
You can't see stars in the city anyway.

Big-light barely matters,
Compared to the ceiling light torn out years ago,
Wires hanging stiff above,
Bulbs never replaced,
Rocketship ceiling fans languishing,
Old college BBB plastic snake-heads illuminating
Two rooms at once;
I thought I was older than this
But how would I know if I never see the sky?

I see screen-light, three now,
White in the dark,
The end of the cliched Platonic cave,
But no enlightenment after all,
Just light-shows instead of shadow-shows.

Screen-light never fails me unless I don't plug it in
They used to think you had to plug in the sun
With peoples' heads and hearts,
Who walked to the tops of pyramids
And maybe the last thing they ever felt
Was a priest reaching into their chest
And cutting out the beat from them
People the renewable resource
Saving us from peak sunlight

Or the ones who marched
To the stone arches to see,
See between for just a sec,
Unsure if the glow would show

The sun I don't suppose requires us;
We are the ones chased by wolves
Until we collapse
We are the ones in chariots driven by idiot boys
Who can't control the horses
Rolled by dung beetles, devoured by snakes,
Kidnapped by spiders and taken across the world.

We were worried about the sun for so long.
Now we don't have to worry, because the sun
Will do the same thing every year,
With occasional flares
To keep the electronic screens on their toes
I'd rather worry;
Now that I don't worry I don't care,
And neglect the light while it lasts.