Dan Raphael Somersaults Until the Pigeons Become Gift Cards and a Transgalactic Pickup Trying to Dot an Asteroid

Now I Lay Me

I sleep when I’m tired, wherever I am

I croon to the fridge when I’m hungry, no matter whose kitchen

an open door to growling darkness & uncertain floors 

neath a chalky mist of disconstruction

Why am I peeing gasoline

how far can my clothes escape when I’m out of my body

if you’ve never made love to a sidewalk

if the rains never left so many holes in your hand every gesture’s orchestrated

i could unravel into a pavilion transporting you to an unnamed mythology

leaving you dazed & lubricated, slightly taxed & spiritually attuned

When I do an upright somersault crossing 4 lanes the pigeons turn into gift cards;

a halo of applause I’ll redeem for the days first window

like a police car turned into a fruit cake we keep regifting

as the buildings add more floors the street must trim its budget;

as cars get wider & more must park tween fewer lines

got my armor from the u-pull-it & prepare to slay the petro-dragon

One song for the exhaustion over taking us

one song to convince the sun to forgive again

Arriving

the hand would knock, would find a knob to turn. a dour door diorama—

just finding a tree wide enough these days, of goldilocks density,

straddling the bow and the rib, tension when everything is still

things you have to bend to get in, be it room  crowd   or university,

to get into my old uniform, out of the many-form, the mostly blue and loose

the synergistic contact field of costume and identity,

the same song on another frequency requires different moves, a bump in volume

is that snow, glitter or some unexpected coagulate of the air and what we put inside it

shower before bed and wake in new clothes

as the less dogs go outdoors the more they run in their sleep

scratch to open, squeeze and turn bringing knee to nose

focusing on an upside-down pine inhaling the studio through polypore windows,

cellular alveoli, dervishes of constant transport

       the wind owes nothing,

the wind collects but has no pockets, no skin to bruise

that cloud with a hanging dog penis whose end unfurls to a starfish

swallowed by the ocean that spawned it, what clouds can do for teeth,

what wind can do to efficiency--wait until the door stops to enter;

hesitation may indicate contraband.

did i get the address wrong or is this the right house in the wrong city,

the area code in my pocket, the impatient streets this map ignores,

why do i have to be the moving part and provide my own lubrication,

signing a maintenance contract is waiving your rights,

replacing filters i never had, adding belts that clash with my atmosphere

turn the key, press the pedal, close your eyes and scream some song--

a big cup of electric guitars the only caffeine i need

Hunger Town

4 medium cost the same as 3 large

depending on who you’re feeding, where they’ve been, what we started with

not counting the drinkage and druggage, gasoline fumes, winter or summer,

what we can shoot along the way, whether they cut the pie into 8 or 10,

the radius of the sun bringing down several trees with its double axles

randomly studded smoke-tread hanging from the vine like clouds from a sprinkler system

i pulled up for chicken but the suit was too small, 

a transgalactic pickup trying to dot an asteroid,

share the protein as you want--that’s not my hand inside the glove

sprouting feathers like an instant forest convincing us growth is easier,

the weather is our puppet, water just happens

eat what you can catch, what you can afford, when no ones looking

don’t let those pizza crusts go to waste, whats the interest rate at the food bank,

free the seeds, a fence means youre paranoid, a road means youre running away

banished from the local coz the cows no longer speak your language,

like changing channels but you cant change back, someone replaced the satellite with art,

electrified oil in unsettled water as the pool liner evaporates in rapture

koi ghosts reclaim their skin from the lungs of the neighborhood,

herons we all have to pay for, this close to the river i dont want gravity to  know

grass explodes sidewalk

           the tallest not always first to go but soon

       or anyone out in the middle

         who would think of going against the stream and the wind

         random invisible furniture

         when the feng shui is perfect the building transcends

rivers reverse, clouds pulling up,

we ascend mountains and get elemental, broader-spectrumed

how is a thunderstorm like a drive through restaurant,

carwash re-automated to deliver, hot and seeping, we are not what we eat: 

food is fuel, work is paycheck, nothing this tasty is given away

For a couple decades, Dan Raphael has been active in the Northwest as a poet, performer, publisher and reading host. His next book, Everyone in this Movie Gets Paid, will be out summer of ’16 from Last Word Press.  His current poems appear in Big Bridge, Peculiar Mormyrids, Caliban, Tip of the Knife and Streetcake.