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Accidents Happen

We’re told time tends toward catastrophe,
And that a butterfly’s ephemeral wings
Might quake the sky somewhere across the sea
By strange cascades of simple happenings,
Arousing thus a violent hurricane;
Which is to say that no one really knows
Just how or why occurrences occur,
But we see patterns, from which we infer
Some order governs whether the wind blows
This way or that, a logic which, made plain,
Might thus at last reveal we suffer naught in vain.

I never knew him, nor did learn his name,
But once the wind died down word got around,
For martyrdom is worthless without fame,
And if by chance that gum had gone to ground
Without a soul beneath, who would ask why?
Instead, for one brief moment we forgot
Ourselves, imagining the crush of steel,
And how a man might wait behind the wheel
In perfect ignorance of life’s cruel plot,
Dreaming of paltry toys he’ll never buy,
And all the while believing he will never die.

We thanked the stars his kids weren’t in that car
But words mean nothing when you’re all alone,
And silver linings seem at best bourgeois
When all that’s sweet is sown in blood and bone;
For even then it seemed their lot was worse:
Condemned to play their parts upon this stage
When they had learned the theatre is deserted,
And fairy tales were writ to be subverted—
For what are they but stains upon a page?
Oh, how our platitudes must sound perverse
When what once seemed precious gift betrays its curse.

Soon every orphan’s anguish was our own,
For all the world, it seemed, was fatherless,
While living was to fall just like a stone
Dropped from on high, a dream of weightlessness
So rudely interrupted when we hit the floor;
But, from such angst, a rum exhilaration
Transfigured all to fields of living fire
So that, with neither loathing nor desire,
We glimpsed with borrowed eyes a chaste creation,
And pitied all we’d hated just before,
While those we loved, we loved right then a little more.

We might have walked on water, had we dared,
And for a fleeting span our slightest gesture
Reverberated such that each repaired
Another rent in nature’s tattered vesture,
As kindness paid for kindness, grace for grace,
And maybe we’d have found our paradise
Were gravity not such a ceaseless bitch,
And such sweet sentiments so prone to kitsch,
But soon we fell to apathy and vice
And broke away from quiddity’s embrace
To sulk within cocoons of calloused commonplace.

I know the best of me some bastard day
Shall rise once more upon its blood-black wings,
For accidents are never far away,
And none can know what woe each turning brings,
But, had I courage, I might cow my lips
To beg a quietus so stupefying,
So rich and senseless as to soothe the hurt
Of every wretched soul condemned to dirt;
For dying is much easier than trying
When selfish suns by mourning might eclipse,
And, given grief enough, birth grief’s apocalypse.

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Shaun C. Duncan is a picture framer and fine art printer who lives in Adelaide, South Australia.

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8 Responses

  1. Mark Stellinga

    Ah, the irony of ‘Life’, Shaun. So much sentiment expressed SO succinctly, and in such an elegant and sophisticated rhyme scheme! One of your finest, no doubt, and one of the most intriguing I’ve found on SCP in quite some time. Super piece.

    Reply
    • Shaun C. Duncan

      Thank you for taking the time to read it and for commenting, Mark. I’m particularly thankful you think it succinct – I often worry that I ramble!

      Reply
  2. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Shaun, what a tour de force of a poem. The amount of effort you have put into this has my admiration and full appreciation. The chaos theory weaving throughout on the symbolic “butterfly’s ephemeral wings” is striking in all of its moods. For me, the imagery has a Yeatsian feel in stark and beautiful lines, these ones being a particular favorite (although, there are too many to mention): “I know the best of me some bastard day / Shall rise once more upon its blood-black wings…”. Oh, how fragile life is, how savage, how sorrowful… and after that initial shock and the platitudes and reasoning, how soon the apathy sets in. I love the mellifluous and meaningful line: “To sulk within cocoons of calloused commonplace” – it says so much… perfectly. Very well done, indeed!

    Reply
    • Shaun C. Duncan

      Thank you so much, Susan – your comments always mean a great deal to me and your perceptive readings of form and content more often than not make me feel I achieved what I set out to do, even if the finished product (as it did in this case) drifted somewhat from where I initially thought it was going to go!

      Reply
  3. Brian A. Yapko

    Shaun, this is an amazing poem — the language is gorgeous, the rhymes are stellar and the subject matter difficult yet intriguing. I agree with Susan: this is a tour de force full of memorable phrasing and imagery. My favorite lines, for some reason are “…and maybe we’d have found our Paradise/Were gravity not such a ceaseless bitch,/And such sweet sentiments so prone to kitsch.” Maybe it’s because of your unsentimental, hard-as-nails perspective. I love the tone of this poem — it’s both respectful and acerbic. It rails against waste and yet contemplates the idea that “dying is much easier than trying.” This poem presents observation and sophistication at their finest.

    Reply
    • Shaun C. Duncan

      Thank you, Brian, you do me a great honour with this comment. I sat on this idea for a couple of years before I felt ready to take it on, and I still feel like I maybe need to attack the theme from a couple of different angles. I often tell myself to lighten up a bit and maybe have a crack at something more lyrical but it’s not really in my nature at the end of the day – I feel it on a personal level, and admire it in the work of others, but I struggle to write it so I’m glad to hear the acerbic, tough-as-nails approach appeals to some!

      Reply
  4. jd

    An amazing poem and so timely for us in the US with the past two days so full of loss.

    Reply
  5. Mal Beveridge

    Great work Shaun. That may be the best Australian formal poetry I have seen since I first read Stephen Edgar. Thank you.

    Reply

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