Set the feeling down. Like a stone
you brought from outside
from an neglected garden.
Let’s be naked, gooseflesh
and fling you thoughts (true or delusive)
as your dirty lingerie, by the couch
I bought the other day, from a
man w/ a beard and jesus christ
what a beard he had.
Let’s lie down, like a century
like centuries do
in a stump and muddled
like all centuries do.
But we don’t care about time,
only care for licked flesh, the skin
that philosophy that grew around our muscles
and wrapped us in the idealism of matter.
Then we pluck desire as echoes from our eyes
and we’ll press against each other
like two enormous skies
up against the other
like two skies crushing a cloud.
And then we’ll stare at the walls, the floor,
the ceiling, we’ll say it’s paint, wood, concrete
and something beyond that, and something beyond
that and something or other beyond the last beyond.
But you’ll be asking questions, what about the fire,
the tomorrow, the singularity of human encounters
and the wounds of the galaxy. But I say, shut up
drop the politics and judge the day
as a lump of mere poetry.
After a while when the cities collapse
and you’re back with your heavy stones
crossing chasms and delving infinitudes,
remember what I said tonight, judge the day
merely as a lump of poetry.

Contemporary Poetry