6/52

REVISION- already
I tried to write an erotic piece for our usual valentines event, but I couldn't manage anything. I took the "love in the shadow of the nuclear congregation" line and sort of just tossed it into this, I feel like it works. I don't think this is the final version of this poem, but I like the new trajectory here.

Dispatches from the Future : 2018 Retrospect

That was the year the mirrors threw up on us
and likewise the self facing cameras collapsed into deep hibernations
and so it went, that the only way to feel beautiful
was to do things to make ourselves feel beautiful
was to find other people who would stare at you in a way that made you feel beautiful

That was the year the alarm clocks all leapt out the windows in unison
and marched down the streets and sang in a chorus
lead by the twirling baton of the Doomsday Clock
We started waking up when other people started calling our names
and if we were alone
we had to learn to listen to the sounds of our passions
stirring into a board frenzy
ripping apart our newspapers and throw pillows
begging for release into the outside world

That was the year of countless midnights
crawling out of the water
slow leviathans draped in plastic
fishbones and windchimes rattling in their hair

The year our heroes and constellations fell like dominoes
and the night was dark dark dark
It was the beginning of an age without stars
and sacred cows
and so it went for a while
that we had no Gods so
That was the year so many of us set out
to scale the mountains
to look down at all of the glittering cities of earth
to see how at night, they too shook like constellations

That was the year we started to starve the algorithms
The year we unplugged
from the babbling time pirate of the Internet

it was the year

Of thousands of maiden voyages with no destination
of kingfishers in constant stampedes across the skies

It was the year we learned to love

in the shadow of the nuclear congregation

When we began to wake up some mornings expecting war somewhere

and because death had come from down from the hills

to live and walk among us so frequently

it became a blessing

and we would be struck by occasional fevers

of everything being immediate and beautiful

Which is to say it was the year we chose happiness
to know that the leaving made was what made what was in front of us sweeter

it made our limbs fountains of joy when we danced

it made the stillness of a smile electric

and darling, we were living in a city whose veins were neon colored lights
we were butterfly knives shivering through long winters

we were bicycles flooding tall peanut butter grasses

we were never coming home we were never leaving home

home was a word in a poem we would spin like a bottle in the center of a circle

home would point us toward our next kiss no

home was a year we could never go back to but this was year of forward

always forward

It wasn't the year we broke the shackles no
But it was the year we cataloged them
the year we went into our basements and opened up the boxes
dust, our acrid histories, filling our sinuses
the year we went to our knees
to overturn the rocks
to sift through the mud to find
the diamonds

The diamonds
on which we would build a house.

5/32

Field notes on the Midnights

Of course, it was the oceans they came from
Quiet hulks with whale bone guts
they had plastic bags for scales

What songs were the ones for summoning?
What were the spells to awaken them?
Where did they grow in their slumbering?
and how could we lure them to sleep?

Spoiler alert: We couldn't.
They lived with us now
in every background
soft and lolling mountains
casting deep shadows across every window in our cities

In Korea, the Midnight is a crane
who glides in slow laps around the borders
we know it lays nuclear eggs but we don't know when it will land
so we do our best to live and teach classes
and smile
and should the egg hatch tomorrow
then I will be glad to have learned enough of the language
to say I am sorry

In America the Midnights are hooded horses
or snapping turtles the size of military vehicles
They are slug kings press themselves out of oil lines
They are coyotes pissing in desert water

Picture a man backhanding a porcupine
picture a swan dive into cacti patches
Picture a the sand in your car after a drive to the beach
how you might find some grains in your living room later
and think it came from the hem of your pants
Picture living in the bottom of an hour glass
Each grain, another midnight
each grain, its own little horror