Quiet Places from Hereafter
There are places from here-on-out
that sit silent like patches of grass
over an ancient grave. The women
ghosts of love-lost’s past float in, out
in and out of the rooms that are made
from bricks of sky. It is not hard to save
a minute here – they circle the air thick
like hands of clocks with Elephantitis or
perhaps they lie like solemn tuxedo dancers
who can no longer dance and wish to fly.
These imaginings are happening impromptu
within these quiet places of the mind, where
in time there will be wreckage of cloud ships,
and rain, with its small hands, can never
ever be small enough to find us.
* * *
The Poet’s Hands
Hands are common They
Have, perhaps, never been
A rarity. What a world
A world with no hands
It would be a land of no
Music, structures, destruction
There would be no wars fought
And there would be no blame No
Fingers to point but no love made
Cue the poet to look for his pair
Hidden within the sock drawer or
The closet space maybe even the gun safe
The poet would know hands are dangerous
The poet would know their capacity for love
For war for creation for combat
For making music flow like streams from
Guitar strings for heart-thud drumbeats
For violin moonlight for gospel piano
Raising the dead Hands can do that too
Poets hands are special only in their
Self-awareness Unremarkable, and yet
godlike in the way they work
* * *
How to Create a Universe
Know, first, that You will have to leave.
You cannot touch that which you have finished.
You will not be able to save that which falls
nor lift up that which thrives and shine it with light.
That being said
You must first give
Your own radiance
to the creation as if
it were You being
created, as if it were
You being born.
When You speak, yell. When You finish,
Your voice will be so hoarse You can only whisper.
When You think the idea, give it a name.
Only then will it become a reality, and breathe.
That being said
You must now turn
Your own back
to the creation as if
it were You being
shunned, as if it were
You being broken.
Even if Your creation asks, “Why do You not stay?”
or
Even if Your creation asks, “Why did You create me then?”
say
“I have left you to figure that out.”
That being said,
You must now go
Your own way
for the creation to
realize that it must
feel alone in order
that it may fix itself.
* * *
Pissing into the Wind
Telling another human being to believe is like pissing into the wind: you never look great after you’ve committed to the action.
The wind smells rank and damp with salt and excrement.
The laughter of a man with dark hair and wings is always shrill. And
You are always left soaking wet with shame, and the stain of apology is never going to come out clean. You will always be remembered as a shmuck and the wind will never blow except from behind.
Plus, the human being will never be willing to suspend disbelief as they will be too busy laughing at how your shadow hides its face in its hands.
* * *
Honey and Coroners
The bees are disappearing and so is my mind.
It is like this when winter is on a nation’s floor
nestled in the corner of every home and
on the inside of every locked door. There is a secret;
there is a thrill of cold chills and the shrill
love of whispers – the perfume of gossip –
makes every town look normal. I guess
that within all this vanity there is
a new definition of insanity and it is that
which we call fucked-up in the head,
or the recently found dead who have long croaked
and they had died over a lack of sweetness.
A lack of sap on the tongue makes for a dry palate
and the bees are gone, and so is my mind –
thought a ghost at the windows ledge .
I have yet to see one golden sign of spring
and never have I ever wanted one more than
now. The time to search those floors and corners and doors
is here, for the coroner is getting antsy and the bees,
they will come as soon as the fresh
earth has been turned and loved ones buried and or burned.
Perhaps then the bees will come again, rich and with honey.
* * *
Samuel J. Fox is an aspiring jazz musician with no singing abilities. He wants to teach people how to think critically because he believes people are losing the ability to do so. He lives in a small town named after a giant guardian of the Cherokee Indian race. He has been published in Dimensions, Nomad, and 13 Magazine. He is twenty-two years old and currently is working on a Bachelor of Arts in Literature studies.
