Weekly Flashback, vol. 1
The following poem, THE UNTHINKABLE, was something I wrote back in summer of 2001. I can’t remember the exact prompt now, nor am I sure to what the title alludes. I know that the only poetry I read back then was Bukowski, Ginsberg and Kerouac, which explains some of what’s going on in the poem (I think). All I know is it’s unlike anything I’ve written in the last four or five years – that’s not to say it’s worse (or better, for that matter), only that it sticks out as an older voice.
THE UNTHINKABLE
When sky falls,
earth shoots roots
toward morning,
air bends light
with sound,
migrant geese
make moans of whales
at midnight,
cabin doors in storms
flap from ends
of piers,
hands near fire
touch love’s lips,
taste flowers
near graves,
the wind, the essence
of ginger
and peanut oil,
pimples roused
by suggestions,
the life of first
and final moments
before
the unthinkable,
the spot of autumn
dying,
the moans of migrant geese
are whales
at midnight,
air bends light
with sound,
earth shoots roots
toward morning
when sky falls.
-
