By Phoenix Fires
Our songs were always of ash
and the warmth and comfort
of hugging it to our shoulders.
Under its soft shawl we could
feel stubs of our wings, where
they once beat. As we leaned
into the fires, we felt light
lick the dark at its edges
and crack with pleasure:
the taste of wood,
and the heart of water,
the funnels that siphon off
the magic from substrates.
It’s how we knew that when
we lifted our arms to the stars
we wove earth into our wishes
and every step toward dream
was laced with aromas of soil.
It’s how we came to understand
all futures are wrapped in bark
and the patches of leaves,
and when the sun returns
we will all rise to meet him.
Learning the Right Words
There was nothing more to say,
only a suitcase and duffle bag to pack.
The trek ahead of us was the long way
around the waters that divided
one river lamp from another
set adrift in the dispatches.
Where the trails intersected,
campfires sparked differences
in an alphabet of colour and shade,
although not under a canopy
of pine needles, as expected,
but between the columns
of city hall and the courts.
In the thickening smoke,
gears in all the clocks clogged
and stopped their alarms.
Soot darkened the marble ceilings
and blackened images hovering
in the chiseled friezes.
Over the silent weeks, we shared
meals and darned socks.
We gathered wood. Hesitant
to speak words, we hummed
as we worked. Weeks fell
to months and the rhythms
of blossom and wither, until
in the early autumn chill,
we traced through the soot
a new language of how
to grow together in the same light.
The Land of Sweet Dreams
All the flowers are toxic and the birds evil.
Clouds remind inhabitants of drifting nooses,
garrotes bleeding into thumbscrews, guillotines.
The only pets are bomb-sniffing dogs, trained
not to prevent bombings but to sniff out citizens
who aren’t building a bomb in their basement,
which is considered a civic duty.
All music sells something, often medication
for hemorrhoids or genital warts. The only
permissible entertainment is either infomercials
or daylong shopping sprees for useless items.
There are tax breaks for people who waste
the most or betray friends without detection.
Landfills are designated as national monuments.
The anthem of the country is in a minor key
and never played but on rainy days, preferably
during lightning storms, when there’s a chance
someone will be struck and the occasion
can be followed by a funeral. Every city is built
around its munitions factory and the first word
children are taught to speak is “power.”
The national ballet only performs dances
that mimic great battles, and all citizens
consider themselves connoisseurs of such theater.
Defunct steel mills and slag dumps are anointed
as mystical sites, canopied, lit with teardrop
Turkish lanterns. People sit among these ruins
considering the colour and lightness of ash.
Carved into the glassy crags are kiosks
for visiting travelers. Here they provide pamphlets
detailing the natives’ expertise in the ways of sleep:
in choosing the right pillow, bed frame, and mattress,
in knowing the right thread count for sheets,
the right weight for blankets, eye masks,
in setting their noise machines to the perfect pitch
of crickets or crashing waves or rolling thunder,
in matching herbs or pills to the biology
that can carry the exhausted body
into the only place no one can follow.
Mistaking Each Other for Gods
The tree above the ground
matches the tree below,
its roots airtight
in waterlogged earth
after a torrential downpour.
Breathe deeply and imagine
taking the plunge, whether into water
or the reservoir of your former selves.
It’s eight o’clock on either side
of the day. In both cases, it’s an echo
passing from before to after,
like the number 8 toppling into infinity,
going on forever and carrying you with it.
The floor I dance across is your ceiling,
as if I were a god
who quickstepped over the stars.
You cast your wishes toward them,
and my feet trail luminescent patterns
of my struggle toward their granting.
But I am not a god,
and something about you
is divine. That’s why
the nature of both these mysteries
defies everything we say,
and we spend every hour
filling the books with our astonishment.
Finding the Song
What we wanted from sparrows
was no longer a song, but flight
from the fires of our falling cities,
a map that charted the way out
as the crow flies, since every human route
was blocked or in disrepair.
Guitars were not needed
for strumming and tuning
but as planters, vines
creeping out their sound holes
and up their necks in a silent
reminder of green and rootedness.
We dug to find the caves
of our deep necessity—not light,
but morning fogs to wrap us
in warm obscurities, a cloak
against each accusation.
We listened for the waters
tapping from the dark corners
of limestone, where the rock furniture
of our prehistory was stored.
Our eyes adjusted to the dimness.
We settled into its arrangements
and listened carefully to the wind
cutting its teeth on sharp rocks,
whistling through the tunnels,
teaching us again
the song of our first father.
Our songs were always of ash
and the warmth and comfort
of hugging it to our shoulders.
Under its soft shawl we could
feel stubs of our wings, where
they once beat. As we leaned
into the fires, we felt light
lick the dark at its edges
and crack with pleasure:
the taste of wood,
and the heart of water,
the funnels that siphon off
the magic from substrates.
It’s how we knew that when
we lifted our arms to the stars
we wove earth into our wishes
and every step toward dream
was laced with aromas of soil.
It’s how we came to understand
all futures are wrapped in bark
and the patches of leaves,
and when the sun returns
we will all rise to meet him.
Learning the Right Words
There was nothing more to say,
only a suitcase and duffle bag to pack.
The trek ahead of us was the long way
around the waters that divided
one river lamp from another
set adrift in the dispatches.
Where the trails intersected,
campfires sparked differences
in an alphabet of colour and shade,
although not under a canopy
of pine needles, as expected,
but between the columns
of city hall and the courts.
In the thickening smoke,
gears in all the clocks clogged
and stopped their alarms.
Soot darkened the marble ceilings
and blackened images hovering
in the chiseled friezes.
Over the silent weeks, we shared
meals and darned socks.
We gathered wood. Hesitant
to speak words, we hummed
as we worked. Weeks fell
to months and the rhythms
of blossom and wither, until
in the early autumn chill,
we traced through the soot
a new language of how
to grow together in the same light.
The Land of Sweet Dreams
All the flowers are toxic and the birds evil.
Clouds remind inhabitants of drifting nooses,
garrotes bleeding into thumbscrews, guillotines.
The only pets are bomb-sniffing dogs, trained
not to prevent bombings but to sniff out citizens
who aren’t building a bomb in their basement,
which is considered a civic duty.
All music sells something, often medication
for hemorrhoids or genital warts. The only
permissible entertainment is either infomercials
or daylong shopping sprees for useless items.
There are tax breaks for people who waste
the most or betray friends without detection.
Landfills are designated as national monuments.
The anthem of the country is in a minor key
and never played but on rainy days, preferably
during lightning storms, when there’s a chance
someone will be struck and the occasion
can be followed by a funeral. Every city is built
around its munitions factory and the first word
children are taught to speak is “power.”
The national ballet only performs dances
that mimic great battles, and all citizens
consider themselves connoisseurs of such theater.
Defunct steel mills and slag dumps are anointed
as mystical sites, canopied, lit with teardrop
Turkish lanterns. People sit among these ruins
considering the colour and lightness of ash.
Carved into the glassy crags are kiosks
for visiting travelers. Here they provide pamphlets
detailing the natives’ expertise in the ways of sleep:
in choosing the right pillow, bed frame, and mattress,
in knowing the right thread count for sheets,
the right weight for blankets, eye masks,
in setting their noise machines to the perfect pitch
of crickets or crashing waves or rolling thunder,
in matching herbs or pills to the biology
that can carry the exhausted body
into the only place no one can follow.
Mistaking Each Other for Gods
The tree above the ground
matches the tree below,
its roots airtight
in waterlogged earth
after a torrential downpour.
Breathe deeply and imagine
taking the plunge, whether into water
or the reservoir of your former selves.
It’s eight o’clock on either side
of the day. In both cases, it’s an echo
passing from before to after,
like the number 8 toppling into infinity,
going on forever and carrying you with it.
The floor I dance across is your ceiling,
as if I were a god
who quickstepped over the stars.
You cast your wishes toward them,
and my feet trail luminescent patterns
of my struggle toward their granting.
But I am not a god,
and something about you
is divine. That’s why
the nature of both these mysteries
defies everything we say,
and we spend every hour
filling the books with our astonishment.
Finding the Song
What we wanted from sparrows
was no longer a song, but flight
from the fires of our falling cities,
a map that charted the way out
as the crow flies, since every human route
was blocked or in disrepair.
Guitars were not needed
for strumming and tuning
but as planters, vines
creeping out their sound holes
and up their necks in a silent
reminder of green and rootedness.
We dug to find the caves
of our deep necessity—not light,
but morning fogs to wrap us
in warm obscurities, a cloak
against each accusation.
We listened for the waters
tapping from the dark corners
of limestone, where the rock furniture
of our prehistory was stored.
Our eyes adjusted to the dimness.
We settled into its arrangements
and listened carefully to the wind
cutting its teeth on sharp rocks,
whistling through the tunnels,
teaching us again
the song of our first father.
Michael T. Young’s third full-length collection, The Infinite Doctrine of Water, was longlisted for the Julie Suk Award. He received a Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the Jean Pedrick Chapbook Award for his collection Living in the Counterpoint. His poetry has been featured on Verse Daily and The Writer’s Almanac and appeared in such journals as, One, Pinyon, Talking River Review, and Valparaiso Poetry Review.
No comments:
Post a Comment