01:00 am

if right now
I were to tell
of a thing that I’d do
for the rest life on
you know I’d say this
—
this is… magic
poetry is magic
and in this
I feel like only in this
am I ever true
and good
—
good
it is a strange word
one does not hear words
this simple
a lot now
—
good
it is so honest.
in its mediocrity
it leaves room for nothing else
—
right now
I think that poetry is good.

12:38 am

think I fell in love with a poem
when I fell in love with her

for she was pretty and I never thought
pretty, silly, aren’t they all?

think I painted her up
and then I thought I had lost her all

—then she smiled a knife’s edge
and I never thought— I never thought—

slowly pulled;
and then she did not quite;
and then all at once she did

then she became small again
a collection I liked to see

and then I stopped running for touch
and I thought I had written her then
thought I’d finished her in word

but she nears sometimes
and she never leaves

12:45 am

everything passes
winds disperse
to clouds scatter

wars dissolve
to remnants and
pinpricks of song

everything passes

and Osamu did say
everything passes

everything passes
winds run on, scatter
to cloud on the sky
electrons
through eyes of streets
oscillate
between days and darks
and then they too tire
say
Osamu believed
before I could:
everything passes

wait and—
would we wait and see if everything passes?
we will pass in the waiting and it is so so simple

Osamu
everything passes…
Osamu
perhaps we never will

here
love tides
through age
and knowledge
just as shiny
comes, lures, goes

Osamu…
here

perhaps not your humanity
but this was your curse
that in every passing moment
you stayed
and to no staying
could you hold

everything passes
it’s funny
we will too
it sounds like a lie

12:50 am

everyday
the words accumulate in me
and at night
I shoo them out
I never know what they are going to be
it is like a smoke
one sniffs all day
but does not smell

how dreary…
how unaware we stay
of all that makes us
what is it that blinds us,
if not the gaze with which we see

sometimes
the words become dreams
sometimes
tossing turning wake
and emptiness sometimes—
or like right now
they become it all
sometimes
I turn on Faizan’s brutal bright lights
and I uncap my pen
and I watch this page
and I pick my nails
and I think think think
it may sound silly
but those are words too.

01:55 am

I think that someday
I would like to paint a ghost
like did Osamu
and I too would like to hide
it for no one to find

I think I’d like to paint
like I like to write:
quietly, clumsily
and without eyes

as a dove flies
and as it hits against the window
curious, and fearing
the picture it wears
I’d like to paint mirrors
and not beauty

for many can paint beauty
and beauty is never
without eyes
and though it may not lie
it may too not be true

I think Osamu
never wrote so fragile
as did when he wrote
where does this little path go?
where does this little path go?

—

11:55 pm

now I will write a poem
I will write no thought
for they lie like silk
smooth and slick with solidity
and its thirst
(pretty pearls fall and fall and fall) perhaps
poetry is hand
the ink that writes it
something of the muscle
subtly moving
to move the words
then this one will be white
for in the light that it forms
is white and sharp

thoughtless banter…

with paper and secret—
we never become so still,
all rehearsals halted
to see the show:

perhaps this one will be fear
perhaps blanket blue
perhaps time
that slips into bed and sleeps
perhaps this will be snore
(I do not snore, I breathe only,
but this time does)