Thursday, September 14, 2023

"The nightsky holds me in its mouth. . ."

The nightsky holds me in its mouth
like a Kingfisher gripping a minnow. 

I pull down the stars & staple them 
to these frigid walls. I will plant

every one of these sparkling diamonds,
like a milky-blurred background

in a black-and-white film, into 
the overpopulated strangeness of 

autumn-long quieted roots. My hands 
over the land like tentacles 

swipes over the land of the season
as if I were Clockwork flying out of 

an old diagram, ink-blotted Ciurlionis-like
greased color; an overloaded treasury of 

conjoined voices, & the Truth is this: 
I view myself as a young boy

within a souvenir snowglobe; 
the needlework as solid as premature speech.

Childhood is a fishbone 
in the mouth of an animal. 

I have abruptly left myself 
in my own mind, stumbling in place as if 

I have something to say, but unable to be 
as urgent as other poets. 

I spew out certain memories, their 
delicacies invigorating interpretation. 

A memory is a peephole, a visible tongue
"airing out" seeking to land someplace 

the way that a bat inhabits a geography
by sense of Feel. I recall as a child, with

a sense of Feel, the out-of-body-experience
I had, as I hovered outside of my bedroom window

& then brought back into "place"--
a barely-visible individual standing 

at the foot of my bed glaring at me 
the way that a "familiar spirit" may create 

disruptions & bountiful messes within 
the orbiting realms of a home. 

My meditative spaces need no redemption; 
wings of every meaning flicker about, 

sonicspeech at the tip of my tongue
aching for the "second before," the way 

that a tear seemingly moves in slow motion
like resin seeping from a Pine, like I 

thinking of you in this utter nighttime silence.