Two Poems for the All-Nighters at the Moby-Dick Marathon

1

Ishmael dreams of CERN. The Higgs boson has come to bring him metaphors. He sees improbable structures built to interrogate and endure the primal energies, the play of mystery and the sceptic’s eye, not unfamiliar. Before he wakes, he knows, he must learn to make a home in the collider.

2

Transmission’s tricky.

Some nights a station will come in from very far away.

It surfaces through a silence on the dial.

You may hear Ishmael’s late night radio show if the weather’s right and the affinities hold.

Ishmael, solo too close to the mike.

His breath coming through like the necessary h in Whale.