The Angels Weren't Happy

​The angels weren’t happy. My gosh!
They wanted to keep that door closed.
Inside, there’s all the bric-a-brac,
Electronics, their guts exposed.

The city of the angels is built
Of tarshish (beryl, or aquamarine).
It has stood there for 6,000 years,
They gather in the mezzanine,

And they deplore, deplore! the messy
Trace of man, the winner and
The also-ran, who has free will,
Freud, Mandelbrot, the manned

Satellite, who builds a Temple
And offers up his entrails to
Be burned, who lives in the center of
The earth and makes a rendezvous

In Timbuktu, who fails in Peru,
Regains his footing, finds his inner
Zulu, slips back and forth through
The cell wall and misses dinner,

He stands by the highest lake in the world,
Clutching a gecko. He puts down the gecko,
He is slogging through the everglades,
He hears a voice, or, he thinks, an echo.