An Exploration of Human Shape and Light

→ PUBLISHED IN ISSUE NO. 26: FALL/WINTER 2020

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I turn this pain into
a continent. A tumor

is only a tumor, in
as much as you let it,

some of it the blossoming
within my brain, much

of it the proliferation
of ghosts and animals

that don’t growl, they
speak. You’ll have

to believe me, when
I speak to you of unwashed

love affairs, and Aquarius
and Aries, washed in the light

of midnight television
screens, and oceans awash

with starfish. In this
continent of mine,

I’m immune to form,
and time, breaking bread

with Gandhi, and just
as easily, slipping into

the slipstream of something
being painted by Tamara de

Lempicka, my eyes
now settled within

the octaves of a howling
moon. I vanquish

the dissident, some of
it still lingers, like the kiss

of a weeping star,
but it stands vanquished,

burnt, erased, the erasure
of my found poetry.

The healing is a continent
too. It is the tissue

of human faith, the ache
of animal longing. It is

the monk, on a distant,
bequeathed hilltop, awaiting

Nirvana or whatever
comes closest to it.

Radiation, within the cosmos,
sounds like terrible German

techno. I’ve never ever
been into techno, don’t you

see the irony? The release
occupies its own continent.

I’m human; I’ll falter.
These continents never will.

Dark whiskey and a light
kiss. Treat it with gentleness.

With sparseness. I turn
the morning into a song,

Nina Simone and Farida
Khanum. Coltrane and the

whisper of a Bombay breeze.
Treat it with bourbon. Treat

it with poems. Gratitude,
and a flourishing continent.