June 25th
electric explosion night
luminous webs encompass
trap me in the spider’s sky
I can’t leave the light
you’ve barely touched your words;
they’re getting cold. Your keys sit stationary,
the pen doesn’t move. Are they rancid in your mind,
have they turned to ash? Do they fumble out like lemons
out of a bowl and into the dustbin? Why can’t you share them? Oh,
you can’t grasp their eelish alacrity? Do they smell of the room once
the birthday candles have been blown out? Why do you let them gather dust
in the ceiling corner in your room while flies circlce their helium moon god?
Your face is wet? Mine too; I thought it was the rain. Instead, they seep down your face,
the words,
so moist,
so tasty.
Rocking chairs under a porch
Thunder and lightning crying out
Rain thumping off the roof
Conversations about life and love
Drinks a little too strong
Good company and
Mother natures song
1) Pablo Neruda (Cien sonetos de amour)
Por eso canto al dia y a la Luna
you shine a light on the captivity
of art, the propulsion of love
how the sky unfolds itself
into the face of everyday passion,
from Isla Negra earth assumes
it’s form & comes into itself
2) Wislawa Szymborska (Maybe All of This)
Under one lamp by day
and billions by night
on the other side of the scale
AI puts a thumb down your blouse,
an autopsy of how great civilization is
not
as civil as a button or document
as civil as the national cem…..
3) Wendell Berry (Anglo-Saxon Protestant Heterosexual Men)
Who is going to sit at our feet
and listen while we bewail…
someplace nearby you sit down
facing a fractured window and see
all our eyes staring back, so many
times you’ve had to sound
your quiet alarm and convince
us of the inconceivable
4) Edward Hirsch (The Lectures on Love)
These lectures afford me a great pleasure
wherein ecstasy is always a drug
and the fumbled ball of eros
rolls toward a goal line already
scrubbed out by metal cleats,
a scribbled menu has intercourse
for breakfast lunch dinner
Twirl a loopy dance on the beach
with me and feel your love
for me.
Step shallow.
Witness my affair of longing
for you and feel my love
with you.
Step shallow.
Had I known these grains
of sugar would become salt,
you wouldn’t have slipped a tab under my
tongue.
But this is sand & the ghostly crabs
are circling—
save me from their tiny pinchers
& I’ll save you from
The Moon who watches this waltz
and wallows
is leaving in the morning
just as us.
During our lazy breakfast
she will pull the tide.
didn’t you ever hear
that you shouldn’t shower during a thunderstorm?
your laugh echoes through
the creeky bathroom,
the patter of the shower
under our feet, the cascade
of rain outside
that’s what they tell us to avoid
unnecessary damage:
unneeded wounds, unwanted injuries
what are the limits of the body?
the mind? the heart?
what are the true risks?
is the danger, truly,
something so minuscule
that there’s no reason for worry?
or have i been indulging,
all this time, in something
that’ll kill me,
that’ll shatter me / whole?
What is it about long road trips and
exploring the meaning of life,
inventing philosophies?
And time just stands still.
No laundry to do.
No distractions.
You and me,
in the
car.
