THE MINERAL'S DREAM

by Shaun Lawton 

When a tree falls in the forest

Is it mourned by the standing survivors

The sound it made as distinct 

As their memory of a thunderclap?

The question then becomes 
Not whether a tree makes a sound
If it falls without anyone around
To hear it, but rather, is there even such
a thing as the ground when that appears
to be forged from our perception?

Not even the forest suspects this much,

Least of all the trees, each one of whom, 
For instance, may believe they are the king 
Of all existence. In whose dream, then
May a leaf be heard to fall, again? 

Listen up.  Without you,
There can be no story.  

A very old tree totters over 
Into the wildwood far away
With a sound approaching 
The memorial of thunder
To its standing survivors
Outspread in their foothold
Through funereal compost
Melding with mossy fungus 
Under the loam of bedrock
Adding another microtone 
To the growing forest song

TO PROXIMA CENTAURI

by Shaun Lawton 

A superfluous flower
  churns up in the waves
 the dunes and troughs
in the solar wind of the vacuole

At once a blossom
  of long scattered petals
 a swarm of barren, icy rocks
tracing the hologram of a bird's skull

Lit by our one single candle
  revealing the dark like a lantern
 leaving traces behind in the fog
rolling in from the nearby wild 

Here alive in our system
  all I see are blue skies
 sometimes with clouds and showers
building our pride with towers

~From a present dreaming Centurion 

FLUENT COMMAND

 by Shaun Lawton 

Cursive rules, its loops and curlicues 

reveal a lot about us.
 Perhaps its best we lay it to rest, 

buried along with the worst

 of our secrets and plotting and lies; 

a nice clean typography
 will better keep us in line. 

It's fine, don't worry, the quatrains

 will be running on time, everything 

kept under strict control
 while the sinuous, inveterate signature 

of our blossoming

 gets rectified by autocorrection 

with machine-like precision:
 Farewell to our sensuous rhythm. 

Welcome the fascist rule.