Lit-Mag #46 – Madrigalesque

The plane angle poems

5/52

five years old with the smile & the special
fifty-two years with the miracle grin
& the little & the place & the warm
& everything is fine ticketty-boo
when someday soon is huger than never
when someday never came a day too soon
time in an egg-cup funny runny time
time to crack those tiny heavens open
September is a long way you can’t wait
September gets here quicker every year
shake the blossom you-are-now-in-Snow-Land
shake yourself to make yourself believe it
all the toys are happy in the cupboard
all the clouds are murmuring in Latin
a cicada is as big! as your hand
a night is not as loud as your alarm
you talk to it softly the cicada
you talk through it talk until dawn arrives
—        peace a kind of gravity & private

 

infinite/finite

I remember I wrote in my notebook
I remember it was November’s end
how somehow the future might be revived
how somehow the moon & I bumbled on
the watch pretending to tick on your wrist
the kitsch of December somewhere in there
time a dim idiot’s legerdemain
time swimming upstream to spawn in the past
my sickness this a counterfeit of days
my mind too skimpy to quite apprehend
you amaranthine in my weightless arms
you can’t stay put inside one deathless month
nothing a clock or calendar could stop
nothing outwits the horologist’s trick
despite them carefully clanging away
despite how mighty how merciless love
life spiralling spiralling just for us
life clicks its punch-card straight into the sun
—        a forever an ecstasy error

 

line/curve

we are straight lines aiming for redemption
I tread the edge between skyline & sky
remember the dictum don’t quit the path
remember the horizon is rounded
there are gazillions for heaven to fix
there is proof peering back down from spaceships
if we all were to go where would we fit
if what the astronaut says is the truth
it is jotted all over our school-books
it is drawn in diffused spirals at dawn
the rule states clearly onwards & upwards
the trick is to dislocate every joint
one takes two points & joins them together
one finds a spider-web stuck to the air
call all the digits click-click into file
call it a thing of immeasurable grace
this is the world we’re leaving our children
this is the imperfect circle I love
—        pi makes sure you always fall short of God

 

mind/mind

you have no idea the mind you’re in
I have seen this mind through an unclear world
that is a black ecumenical cube
that machines my vertices lovingly
a spear in each of its triple six sides
a leaf in the garden of memory
each face a geometric corruption
each piece fits inside another like this
a space perfection will never survive
a tesseract dear one! a Chinese box
which cannot contain a cosine of truth
which equals a relative endlessness
to enter the error is recklessness
to feel it deeply austere absolute
it is sent to murder us in our sleep
it is a bitmap of all that I am
what can be learned from the rickety mind
what can be learned from a glittering shape
—        children & gods beseech our instruction

 

walk/walk

you begin your random walk from the land
I begin my random walk from the sea
where an ill-defined hill subsumes the heat
where surfaces reel above sunless space
& your feet purchase distance step by step
& my feet feel toward each future blind
between troubled trees & the beasts beneath
between choppy fears of fangteeth & such
with their orange thirst exist/unexist
with their weird deep lives extinct/unextinct
turn left next volcano fire-in-the-world
turn right treading water as I was taught
circumvent jungle both green & concrete
circumvent/navigate all seven seas
then loud as America quiet as ice
then shout out Ahoy in earthliest voice
incline to horizon eyes full alert
incline to arrival therefore until
—        smash-smash softly o astonishing shore