Karma, too.

before I enter
I remove my shoes; maybe
it's a holy place, and maybe
it's purely for comfort
so that when I come to stand
at an angle in the sand like
a lightning rod, knowing
I'm asking for it, I can feel
the earth between my toes in certain
gritty intimacies.
Toeing the line between
heaven and hades, making a
spot for myself on both teams
simply by breathing,
by being
human and all the dark coffee
tendencies. Feeling the pull,
with no concern where the
tide might sweep me out
across the world, or
the front stoop, thrown out
with dirty water and loyal intentions,
just so long as I can find you
at my door, knocking still.
a river running in full
flood, because the rain came
and it swelled at every droplet
increasing it's affectation, it's
bank-breaking elocutions,
the grass is greener and greener
under the weight of watchful
manifestations. I am struck
swollen with the light,
so bright and so loud that all
the air can do is say "boom"
and shudder, for
when heat moves through
the atmosphere, to parch holes open
to the earth and sky, it peels
like bells, like hawks, like tropical
thick-skinned forbidden fruit and
chimes that set each wheel
spinning
on one each, those thousand petals.

Reviews

[W.k.kortas]

Should "elloquotions" be "elocutions"?


The learned Mr. Hart does not normally go out of his way to pimp out a fellow writer, so when he does, the wise man listens. One of the things which struck me about the piece was the manner in which (in line 23) this turns into, at least from where I'm standing, a love poem. The transition is clear and sudden, but not jarring in any way. Before the turn, the tone (not the writing, though) seems tentative, unsure; after that, it is almost joyful, celebratory. This is very, very impressive work.

[Ed Hart]

I don't know why but I tend to hold my breath when I read your poetry. Something to do with the increasing intensity. It's a good thing this one wasn't any longer.