ANOTHER TIME
He’s from another time.
That’s why he’s smoking
his third cigarette.
That’s why one tiny light
draws you to him
even in the thick of darkness.
His was the body you imagined
Now with your touch,
a tingling reality sets in.
Your wayward mind
finds direction in your fingers.
You think of how desire
is a small room,
just enough space for two.
And a cigarette is a gentle heat
compared to the flame
that builds inside you.
Yes, he’s from another time.
He reads poetry…
to himself
but also out aloud to you.
And there’s a softness to his voice,
a reassurance that, once begun,
good things will continue.
He’s from another time, yes,
but so are you now.
You’re shed of the lonely hours,
alive in the shared ones.
And when he closes his book,
when the ember of his cigarette dims,
you understand that the light you followed
was never his alone.
It was the flare in your own chest
finally given oxygen,
finally burning steady.
OPENING UP A BOOK OF ART
Alone in my apartment, no company but a
reading lamp, the book fell open at The Scream,
A face stretched wide, not in pain exactly,
but in the moment before pain perpetuates.
I’d seen hell before -Rosemary’s Baby, The Omen –
but this was different. No antichrist in a cradle,
no devil in disguise. Just a bridge, a sky
hemorrhaging orange, and a figure who knows
too much and cannot un-know it. Strangers strolled
behind him, unaware of the rupture in the air.
I’ve felt that rupture. The woman in the grocery
aisle herding four young brats. The homeless
guy bullied by cops. Once you’ve seen the scream,
you start to hear it everywhere - in the rustle of leaves,
the tautness of a forced smile, the ringing of
church bells, the old lady arguing with the
young girl at the cash register. It’s in every
silence, every noise. A sky about to bleed. A face
on the verge of eruption. The dread of being human.
The sudden scream. The incumbent scream.
Two hands at the ready yet to weak to hold it in.
MOVING THE HIVE
She is my baton,
a queen, buzzing in my palm.
Workers follow,
not as many
but as one,
much but to instinct’s satisfaction.
I have made for them a hive,
a citadel of comb and bloom.
I delicately place
the queen within.
The workers thicken around her.
I listen in on their conversation:
It is summer. The sky is clear.
The sun is a wound
we have learned to love.
Soon, we will make honey
from everything that
has tried to break us.
ALOFT
sky-bound,
aloft like a balloon,
away from you,
one light,
one winter,
but what’s the chill
compared to
your cold stare,
and your painted
war-like face,
angry lips,
nostrils of fire –
to the stars, I go,
to the dawn, the morn,
the horizon,
whatever has no hold,
out of hearing,
silence for language,
just enough wind
to buffer, not despise me
MISTER RESTLESS
I leave this place
thinking I need
to be somewhere
though I have no idea
where I’m headed.
But I’m on the move,
that’s the main thing.
I don’t turn around.
I don’t even look back
over my shoulder.
It’s not as if I have
somewhere to be.
But I do have
somewhere to leave.
I’ve got these
perennial itchy feet,
this restless mind,
this distaste for even
the most temporary
of permanence.
So it’s goodbye
whoever you are,
farewell your life,
your ideas,
your memories,
your passions,
your likes and
your loves.
I’ll be elsewhere
before you even know it.
That’s how I am.
I fear commitment.
To another person.
But, more so,
to the ground
I’m standing on.
No comments:
Post a Comment