More Than Expected

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…come here you idiot it's going to go off…
                                                 Robt. Creeley

It doesn't,
not the way we anticipated.
Instead of a big bang, then an expanding,
it's a Max Roach drum roll,
a rappity-tap-tapping
approaching machine-gun staccatos
and climaxing in a Buddy Rich Big Band bombardment.
Like oatmeal boiling over
the cooking pot and mucking up the stove-top,
it takes years to mop up the mess.

Don't throw stones,
(or bombs) we're told—
we do anyway…
When a stone, thrown,
violates a virgin pond it throws
up a water-spout that births baby waves
that build to a storm surge by the time
they savage the shoreline.
(Bombs do this;
armies, too.)

At the point of invasion
a bubble forms and grows
till it covers the pond, the shore,
the jungle beyond, growing larger until
it consumes the entire country and the innocent
sky as well
trapping gasses within,
which become super-heated
by the sun
till the whole threatens ignition
and a big
Bang!