november front
NOVEMBER FRONT
by jason mashak
I get drunk
on fog embracing evergreens,
Each molecule of moisture
an airborn fetus of probability.
It’s like an addendum slipping through
stuck to disclaimers
that can’t wait to be entered and piled
atop a banged up cabinet, maybe
to fall behind, found only
when the lease increase requires a move.
Yeah, it’s like that somehow,
that fog on those evergreens…
Like something I lost
and might still be bitter about.
* * *
But there’s clarity
on a night like this,
When the radio towers on far flung hills
approach like vertical runways.
And the moon is cold and distant
reminding of the prodigious sun
that tries to manipulate
the fog into leaving trees
barren, Father Time
and I both watching, down.
I feel the towers
when they can’t be seen,
Their voltage reckons through
conductive air(s).
~ Multnomah Village, Oregon
-From the book, Salty As A Lip to be released this month by Haggard and Halloo and Effing Press
Tags: Guest Writers
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My favorite line: “When the lease increase requires a move” — that’s Multnomah Village and just about every other interesting place to live! I wonder if that crazy little bookstore is still there.
I was going to comment on the emotional resonance of this poem but Jim beat me to it. Nice work.
“Like something I lost
and might still be bitter about.”
great line.
There’s an interesting use of language/metaphor in the first part of this poem that I like. The second part develops the imagery further, making the moment a little more palpable while maintaining the meditative gist of it all. In the end, I don’t really know what to make of it, but that doesn’t matter much – conductivity has different levels of existence, different types of receptors. Still, the imagery of the second part is what sticks with me, probably because it draws from what was established earlier – an emotional resonance.