City Made of Centuries of Breath
City Made of Centuries of Breath
by Dan Raphael
As though the air was glass or ice
all but what i’m swimming through
the dangerous step between media
orientation before acceleration
The less you weigh the easier to influence
wind vs muscle, gravity vs enlightenment.
if we could land on the sun, if turbined micro-wind tunnels
whistled through parts of me, leaving nothing but watts,
taking nothing bit momentum
Loves labors, friction to tinder, stillness ignites
remove the marrows memory, show calcium
it can be bamboo instead of plaster.
you don’t wash feathers you edit them, align with the light
i’m a tumbler, rolling with the punches
You can be too thin, too rich, too close together
shoulders of padded illusion
shoulder or elbow or fist, suicidal head-butts
even wood peckers know to insulate, let the hammer go through
before pulling it back, from forge to forgery
My wing span, my vertical, a non muscular hovering
as the brain is a heliocentric bird with throbbing meaty feathers
the body’s a dam, the last tree standing, ridge-top middle finger.
who gets to perch on the tallest, above the binoculars
& private elevators, without rockets or shields
light focused to a rebel physics, a simulated emission
when my only move is to shake the can before opening it
The whole citys my bathroom, the quicker my stomach sorts its baggage
the more i can catch on the wing, pecking stalks & fruit,
nestling my long beak into the sweet & ready crevasse
Velocitys illusion of fierce, of determined,
we all walk funny, those who’d rather float than fly,
the optism inherent in unplanned stops,
those who want to be driven, slow roasted rather than aglow
When i’m stoked with protein and have no idea where i’m going—
must be love, love of the moments fire, love of the next inhalation
even if each body has a set number of heartbeats, the rapid epic
after 10 flights of stairs, from dinosaurs to skyscrapers
before the sedative rhythm of here and now
Would you rather run our of space or time, given the liver
of someone smaller and saner, given the eyes of an inuit pointillist
when the mountains snowy mantle spreads its wings into summer
when a thousand mosquitoes go surfing on the pond of me
when i learn to keep my food in my stomach cause no one wants that mess
i wont eat anything that doesn’t have a bar code
How can i fly when i tremble to jump from a two foot wall,
as if the sidewalk is really deep water and i’m not graceful enough
to not conk my head as i break through the surface and lose my sense of direction
realize how little difference tween water and air, feel my internal pilot lights,
my muscles ready to push against something and find a safe place to open my mouth
where utterance doesn’t bring unwanted consequence,
surprised my front door opens onto a six lane street people are paid to keep clogged,
there’s no other side, just anywhere but here, what goes up needs a new home,
what comes down reeking of windowless combustion
Dan Raphael’s poetry always thrills me, it’s unformulated
non formulaic anarchic diffuse spirit makes my day, its
rhythmic, dynamic,sometimes bombastic energy and imagery
takes me to a higher realm of language, which is what creative language poetry is all about.