SurVision Magazine

Thin


my bean poles are false robotic, cerulean-matte, slender; level
balancing my moments, from my soft flesh slower
to ask than just do:

I know the moon isn't laying down
tonight, straightening like silver hair down the back,
know I've grown some petals, but

my fronds are fire, hotter than light,
ruining light with skinny tongues of salt,
give twisted faces

to the dark ones over there. who are thin
as paupers & end up modern anyway. & these
cloudy, these loose-lipped, I let them walk away.





What's Left After Suicide


Lakes are nothing but the ground's failure
to rise above. We measure entry wounds
only once death is rooted into flesh and bone
and hasn't blown out the back.
Before the mind thinks its last -
a mountain just wide enough
to block what's left of a family.

My uncle is saying something
about memory and purity from beyond.
I don't remember what my cousin said
in his sleep about the suicide,
but it was a language
shared by the two of us.
Once life took us away, we forgot it all.

Body may not be the best word to describe a lake,
but it will do in this case.
Doubt may not float on water,
but what else to do with it but drown?
"Animal" doesn't mean apathetic,
and "Man" doesn't mean aesthetic.
The knob won't turn when I want to see inside.

In the fugue they say the sky
is a solid hue of blue.
I'm listening.
I'm listening as if the sky were singing,
not in memory, euphoria, story. More about
the deep lake that reflects the sky,
bracing body against the bitter cold.





Translation


The skylark doesn't translate every joyful little
noun and verb. Meaning is extracted by touch.
Even when you speak like a protagonist of language, your words
are frosted glass. Even when the ground carries whimpers over
disaffection: foot to dirt as will to weight,
to understand. Tweet and chirp; variables for all time. Seem,
if you can, a stridently joyful simulation, then be the artificial
grave flowers, invisible spirit.
A skylark breathes out: the order of reality. What sister
to love tweeted and chirped to compose,
that's what will build the doors of you.
Your aperture, your optic nerve in action.
If you catch the little joys in your hand, later
it will feel reactive not to say a thing.




David Bankson lives in Texas. His poetry and microfiction can be found in concis, (b)oink, {isacoustic*}, Artifact Nouveau, Riggwelter Press, Five 2 One Magazine, etc.