These poems are the first five in a book-length sequence called This Sentence Is a Metaphor for Bridge.
1
The dreams that leave you stranded
on the ledge you hope you will not die on
complete the ones that you run
naked through, bright
as a waxing crescent
slitting darkness open,
despite the absence
of a waiting lover.
Face your shame.
Then sweep the air
above your head with flame.
2
Dragon scales shimmering
across the trembling
surface of the lake,
the moon’s reflection
inscribes your loss.
Forget how long you hid.
For now, the noose hangs
limp and bloodless
around your neck,
and the words swirling
in your unshod brain
like tea leaves
in a paper cup,
like birds that’ve lost
the will to flock,
refuse to come to rest.
Nonetheless, these lines,
that fallow field,
the barefoot love
you’re here to render.
Affirm your bruised
and withered heart
against the sky’s clenched fist.
Undo the ligatures
binding your name.
You will not burn,
nor will the earth beneath you
cease to turn,
if you embrace
a newly sprouted leaf.
Do not grieve.
You cannot know
before it happens
what comes next,
cannot dream away
the vast expanse
you’re heir to. Reject
the splintered ethics
that would buy your silence.
There is no balance without fear.
You will not fall.
Your path is clear.
3
You fucked like beasts,
attacking or defending
what precisely
you never learned,
as you never learned
how not to cross
the joining of cock and cunt
to the bared fangs
of dismissed compassion.
That’s why you tell your children lies.
The trysts you keep with ghosts,
however, are yours not theirs.
Besides, much sooner than you think,
they’ll make their own without you.
4
You counted them
before you understood
that you were counting,
wrapped each one
in a scrap of newsprint,
arranged them all
side-by-side in the basket
your neighbor left at your door
with the shoes you once said
looked comfortable enough
to run ten miles in.
You tied those laces tight,
chose the road
you hoped would end
in unbroken silence
and walked that bitter mile
through the dust,
and pierced its veil,
and mastered your disgust.
So let the rotting corpses
you have carried
fall away. Honor the rift.
If you plan to stay,
shed everything that’s not a gift.
5
We’re here because we trust that you won’t leave,
because these fallen leaves distort death’s face,
because what fell from you is less reprieve
than simple logic falling into place.
The future forms in increments of sound,
the footsteps of those fingers on your thigh.
What rises overflows its banks. Unbound,
it grows until it fills the evening sky.
It’s more than rhythm calls these words to form.
It’s more than precedent. You have to break
consensus with each line.
You have to.
You’ve come this far to learn what love’s about.
So turn it over; see what rattles out.
Copyright © 2018 by Richard Jeffrey Newman.
