Five Poems by Ivan Peledov

 

Off 

 

Forests don’t speak volumes, but the trees 

can't stop mumbling, and each of their words

is good for a wastebasket. Each of their gestures,

a torture for geese and humans.

We bought half the Moon

just to hide from them.

 

 

How many arms do you need 

to carry your share of the stars? 

Winged dogs are poor guards

of the rifts in the void. 

Winged frogs don't even exist.

 

 

Some pretty beasts lure tourists 

into the guts of the sky. 

Evergreens smother climbing prophets. 

They hardly know the future anyway.

How much paper do you need

to map all the clouds?

Unravelling

 

When you cease being a word, you are just

a memory of a dancing shadow,

and the universe is roaring in every 

public restroom if you care to pay attention.

There is a five-legged sun asleep on the roof.

Fish bloom in the fields, air is cheap.

Vacant benches tremendously enjoy it,

contemplating the other side of the skyline,

and the psalms of crumbling walls decimate

the ranks of celestial dwellers.

Monsters around the Corner

 

Cottonwood trees watch the geese 

taking a nap on the wing.

Music is a mistake.

Wine is a humanized 

replica of water. It's time 

to choose the shape of euphoria:

Apple or pear?

A Quilt for a Cow

 

Sun people eat rails and ties.

Moon people caper on highways.

It's cold. It takes time to check 

all the doors and windows of the air.

Butterflies sleep in the snow.

Foxes leave their tails 

in the gaps between discarded lullabies.

Still

 

Amid the smell of grass pissed over by coyotes,

gullies replete with insect spirits,

plants miming menorahs,

sounds of animals that doubted my existence,

I was a rusty road sign that couldn’t read itself.

Ivan Peledov lives in Colorado. His poems have been recently published in Eunoia Review, Artifact Nouveau, Ponder Savant, and Fevers of the Mind.