headwind
headwind
by dan raphael
Coffee over kansas
coffee over kansas
in a starless night shirt
a single speeding thread through the brain sky
nine concentric lobes, pots that wont separate,
metal becoming skin
in a 2 day pincer movement
like inverted crab legs, tendon antennae
im so excited you follow
the promise of cloned bison
as each vertebra sprouts legs
abandoned asphalt bringing rain from inside itself
each tree a prayer
i’ll keep dialing new numbers til someone answers
interstitial state—all borders and no transition
house full of weather
floor so shiny i fell through
the ocean doesn’t want me today
with each jump i create a step to jump higher from
an island surrounded by sleeping people
ohios been removed from everyones memory
odorless burning
if every seat in this plane was a candle i’d get my wish
using chocolate to fill teeth
claws for walking, wings for deceiving (ambivalence)
so much plastic flying south i thought i could read the sun
but my eyes were rebooting from a demitasse of sudden electricity
when the salmon spawned in the cities bulging with 20 story aquaria
dont go home dont change color
i only swim at night
blood is my teacher
a bachelor of ambivalence, a masters of suspension
pulsing holistic destiny
wealth is unstable
what doesn’t shatter you makes you transparent
if we were all the same temperature we couldn’t breathe
open the walls & paint the doors
ive been delivered but not tipped
if my hands are immobilized i cant talk
the houses growth spurt surprised the furniture
ginger without carbonation is tyranny
the mosquito thought i was one of the trade towers
vote for the prettiest
a marching band with meat instead of instruments
i fell from my dream into bed
ladders of smoke
my left arm is suffering draught
denim sky unbleached clouds
slice cars not bread
a bathtub of liquid lawn
each hand holds an ounce of hundred proof
civilization in remission
can i help you across the river
Wild! I saw that one word title and expected something more traditional/conservative but was gleefully surprised on reading the main body.
Poem darts with movement like an existentially aware teenager sprinting naked thru the woods….”with miles to go, before i make love with 9 muses in 9 concentric lobes”…
Modern, eruditic, holistic, and rampantly keen…it drips wit, and chomps at the avant gardener bit. Everything i love most with succession of images tapping into that slice of stream of life of sub-kapluey consciousness. Thank you for making my day, Mr. Raphael.
P.S. If you intended poem to be single spaced, you can switch to ‘Code’ on the Post menu and then just erase all that shit…i don’t know why it adds stuff but it just does. I used to have that problem where I would paste a poem and then this evil code screws it all to hell…took me a year to figure it out.
this write left me feeling a little spastic with crazy eyes, checking my limbs for new appendages, leaving me breathless needing that hand you offer at the end.. an eclectic mess of vocabulary that if left to stand alone would no doubt make a story all of its own, the way interspersed your ideas and scenes make me want to read more of your work…
excellent