X – The Wheel of Fortune

The ice melts,
the polar bears die out.
The great whales, happy now,
swim from ocean to ocean.

Sooner or later a new Ice Age
will create a frozen hell on earth.
Don’t ever tell me there is
no such thing as perpetual motion.

V of Wands

Five I’s –
I mean five me’s –
fighting.

The senses symbolise
those I’s
but there is more to me – the me’s –
than eyes and ears and finger-tips.

One I says Yes,
another No,
another says Stay
another Go,
You love her, stay with her, cries the other,
another cries No, no, no!

Five me’s
fighting, fighting, fighting.

V of Cups

All is not lost.
Two cups still stand.
Maybe – like the Two of Cups –
they are the two of you,
and all the others foolishness
like last night’s drinks,
like when you find yourself the following morning
in bed beside an unknown face, unknown hair.

All is not lost.
For the two of you,
hand in hand,
or for you alone if need be,
there remains the bridge that leads
across the river to another chance
somewhere, in some other land.

XIX – The Sun

When the dot popped, we are told,
that marked the beginning of Time.

I can’t say I hold with
beginnings of Time,
but one thing seems clear:
if the dot hadn’t popped
or had popped and then stopped,
or if things had unrolled
just that tiny bit faster – or slower –
we wouldn’t be here;

and that now
if our blessings didn’t outnumber
our trouble and pain,
there’d be no one and nothing
here on this earth
but heaving slime and barren dunes
and sticky, burning rain.

II – The High Priestess

Between the pillars and the veil
we may glimpse the other side.
But the holy Priestess pale
seems guard, not guide,

a priestess made of marble cold –
she will never stand aside
not though it be for the Pope himself
in all his pride!

She is not made of marble cold
but she may only stand aside
for the coming of the King
and the King’s bride.

Knight of Pentacles

Don’t laugh at the Home Guard,
the ones who stay behind
to defend their own back yard.

But for them
the ones who wield the sword abroad
would return to empty homes
and barren fields.

X of Pentacles

An old man
sitting in the shade by the Great Gate
reflecting on the Tree of Life.

His wife is dead. These dogs?
He hardly knows them. Though he knew
their great-great- (great-great-?) grandsire,
remembers him even as a pup.

And those two standing there?
That’s not his daughter. (His daughter, too,
is dead.) That’s his granddaughter.
And his great grandson.

The Tree of Life. The ten
Sefiroth. What goes up
must come down, they say.

And so it must. But more importantly,
what comes down must one day go
back up. One day soon.

VII of Swords

Stealing out with a stolen horde
of weapons or money, or simply word
of what they plan –
the thrill of the world of kill or be killed,
the thrill of the world of the sword.

Stealing away with but one regret,
that you couldn’t bring with you the girl you met,
the femme fatale with the laughing eye
and a golden gun on a slender thigh.

The thrill of the world of do or die,
the thrill of the James Bond world.

Page of Wands

A young man in a
barren land
dreaming grand
dreams of change.

To stay or not to stay?
To change what lies at hand,
make bud the burnt out dust,
the fiery sand?

Or take the Fool’s road
across the mountain range
and finish up a stranger
in a strange green land?

IV of Wands

Inside
a red tower
rears up,
a phallic
pseudo-spire
with no bell
thrusting
into the sky
while outside
in the sunshine
the chuppah, the wedding bower
stands ready and garlands of flowers
await the marriage of
what may well turn out to be
Water and Fire
Heaven and Hell