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tell me I will not die alone
in a hotel room or anywhere else you aren't. tell me of the world's apples their variety their color my eyes have always been brown but I see so much gold. somewhere it is summer, somewhere the blue fingers of lightning tap the horizon. the heat itself has a smell, sensual as all the roses of the beach reclining the legs of their scent across the coast. the least of things is alive and knows it is alive. the sand vibrates like atoms. love, it is only in your eyes that I am no longer a bear, a common beast. it is only in your eyes that I have shed the relentless torpor have unzipped this tuxedo of matted night. Durga, tell me of the strawberries that hide in the grass whisper something of such entanglements. thank you. thank you. in this human shape that only you will believe in I will rinse your hair I will press the piano keys of your toes softly to the earth. the world has gone mad--
the politicians are crushing our eyes as we sleep teeth ooze through keyboards someone stomps the sweetest blade of grass and the last tiger striped in midnight wind and sunset growls and dies in a Chinese blender. "so what everything burns," someone insinuates despite the salt you throw over your shoulder. an itch, tenderness for the fallen the precious, such baggage. the child isn't burning in Aleppo that's too far she is burning here, Here! in the crèche of your ribs in the hallow. to live you must choose to be the child you must choose to be the tiger choose to dance like you too burn you too spin in the wind midnight and sunset before ash. or take your sex among the dead be silent as a missing tongue silent as they silently come to toothpick the forests of Brazil silent as they silently come with chlorine mops for your brown children shut up be silent stay silent while the humpbacks scream so subliminally in their bottomless beds. even navigating
winter yes I vividly feel the august saturated peach so uncontrollable the juice that deserted my mouth sweetening my softening chin your hand piloting my hand to the corner of your own mouth so like the corner of a lost map horizons disappeared beyond blankets knotted like kelp in a slow sea and behold even now I recall the moistness of fog of surf of light how deftly the nighthawks nodded one-eyed and waiting for the hallow night we too slept into the night we too burrowed into the sweetness same as a peach oh Durga the sweetness so deep so august sank so deep into the earth and became long so long as long as this memory. frigid rain through bare trees
fall, the thinning, the taking away militia of crows jackbooting the fields don't listen to the voices there is no natural selection if we shiver and die it is because we've tried too hard to be lonely. & then your
car sags in the parking lot flat tire there are times you’ve thought God hates you and times you’ve thought No God but now you open the trunk get out the jack despite a childhood full of nails falling out of love, badly despite times like this when the jackhandle slipped knuckles tar shitdamnfuck but no, bless me you whisper to the fields and their inner softness to the rain holding its wet breath to the wild bright fruit of stars: heal this tire. it has been a long time since
I thought of you. November is a month grown weary of the sun. leaves batter the earth like falling corpses. a kiss lingers, a lost cardinal. a bird that matters, like a letter in a shoebox. brown and yellow do not suit me so I unzip. such missing, your eyes blue as torch jets. time, they say, has a flavor. this Fall has a flavor. Durga, something is awkward with the way I am sitting. an eye is crooked. I put my hand to my face to remember your hand. it keeps the earth from cracking. peace, peace, love. it is my only map of you. at last at the bottom of the cup I remember how deeply I drank and how much I poured out. |
Poetry LogPoems are posted here when I'm ready to share them. I often don't title my poems. The date you see above the poem may be the date it was posted here and not necessarily the date it was created. To see more, click on the Archives below. Archives
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Unless otherwise noted, all content ©Paul-William Gagnon, Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-NoDerivs license.
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