Three Months ‘til Christmas
a feeling of spring
three days into autumn
or just a feeling of change
a coincidence of waves of different frequencies
most with their own particular sensors
one that hears the oak leaves getting ready
something internal charting the sun’s illusory slippage
as some organic gyroscope still feels the earth
penduluming from equinox to equinox
the deceleration and reversal
morning rush hour louder than usual
though it’s Saturday
explanations take too long and seldom click together
still something appears building, whether just a bubble
to pop or a crescendo like an instant tree
most collisions are so incremental
you hardly feel the friction, the air
compressing around me, how molecules
say excuse me, or watch where you’re going
Road the On
mouth cannot open wide enough
as if the air is resisting me,
whenever 5 per cent of me flexes
that much electricity illuminating the small town
in my armpit, a tendon that’s a river,
a mole that’s a library
i am anywhere. in motion
a nebula of partial foci/coordinates
waiting to choose/open portals at what cost
strap in for another day, another 1500 miles
turning around at the halfway point
and seeing where i’ve never been,
so much changed by sweat and gravitational wind
if i spin will the floor spark, will the carpet
become permanently attached to me
as if i now have a few spare brains.
the challenge of floor plans, the heresy of power tools
two bright hands on a dark table
i can’t see the other end of
as a thousand steps become just one
my head its own GPS number
my feet potential lanterns, waiting for
the right darkness to trigger them
a cluster of switches i may never know
what i turned on or off
Excognito
everybody knew who I was but few agreed with each other
were the shadows or my features moving, was my height fluctuating
or had the sidewalk become a breathing trampoline
no one thought I was speaking their language
daylight melted like a pile of snow teleported to July
night-water was rising through my heels, not yet enough
to wash my face, to write on the dry pavement.
when I said I was hungry it sounded like
“get the fuck out of my way” which caused a few to bolt
some clutched whatever protection was under their shirt
a city bus pulled up, the driver came out and handed me the keys
as I got inside the bus became a bicycle with squirrels for pedals
in the mirror I saw the leaves of my hair were beginning to change colors.
where my watch was was a lens that could also receive
transmitting gps confusion so no one would know where I was
even if I refused to move
but soon I was heading the other way
turning onto wider and wider roads bordered by denser and denser forests.
the median became a canyon filled with ziggurats of shipping containers
glowing with light, exhaling so many origins and fuels
throwing ropes of water up to the surface that always slid back
up here the road don’t mind slicing under mountains
as the light of stars is mostly waste disposal
so many pictures ahead and above
at least one of them is me
dan raphael's poetry collection Maps Menus Emanations was
> published this July by cyberwit. more recent poems appear in Unlikely
> Stories, Otoliths, Oz Burp, Lotus-eater and SurVision.
