Little Hank and I (Cordite Poetry Review) →

August 07, 2019

You bought me a kite yesterday
Hold my hand
You tell me to look towards the Moon
Follow the needle string
Somewhere between here
And there
You are always under my chin
Look up
Patching melodies that the mountains pluck
I ride on your shoulders from Yosemite to Strathbogie
Your feet tell a story
Size 11 bootstrap braille
Pine needles
Salt bush
You and me tasted it all

—

Read the poem in full ↩︎

I could have been on a boat

would have liked to

a boat would be nice but

if I can’t have a boat

I would like to just fall asleep

when my credits roll

to fall asleep right at the end

at that small jut

where the audience thinks maybe

there’s another scene surely

it can’t end now

and they don’t know

or want to but wait

to see if the darkness continues

then music begins from

somewhere behind and

the words rise up

the credits roll

I’d just fall asleep then.

Imagine

having five grand.

(overheard)

When the sun sets

before the night

and I’m riding

down the three-lane

barely lit, moving,

knuckles white

the rushing air from passing cars

to my right;

the curb is always close.

There’s a certain numbness:

winter’s night,

gloveless hands, lost

love, depression –

moving towards the orange light,

near red.

I grip the bars,

shaking,

facing the intersection

and sailing through,

nearly missing.

The sound of a rock

underarmed

into the shallows

is louder than

the sound of a thousand

handfuls

of tossed sand.

The gait of a wingless bird

inside a circle

of hands and feet.

Sometimes I feel like a brick.

A brick in a pavement,

on a wall,

up a church,

inside a chimney.

There are other bricks.