Jason Visconti

I Am Having Breakfast With The Breakers Of The Ocean


I am breaking fast with the breakers of the ocean
too timid to wash the saltwater off your face.
Yet in my letters, while my doors are closed for privacy,
And my lamplight shines directly on my face,
Else a blur of seaside vagrancy corrupt my song
I shall know our picture complete
It shall be indivisible
A flagship rides the farthest lighthouse nightly.

And the curve of this scar could not belie it,
And shall bid it in
By the mark of my hand I shall wear it
I shall throw flowers after my burial at sea.
We shall scavenge together a rock pile on the shore
And beat our brow within
We shall die by cracking our rib cages
Trusting in the skeleton of the earth.



The Eyes


The iris is the flower
for pungent mornings.
Sight is the vulva of intoxication.
Vision is the vertigo of a wilting rose.
When roses gather together
To imitate each other
It's a stifle of blindness
Rain come down heavy to see the road.



Sleep


the sandman whispers in my ear
and so what if the sandman does
shall I hold to my ear all evening
shall I round off the circles beneath his eyes
who am I to be talking in my sleep
not remembering the fog of so many dreams
the whisper elsewhere the whisper surfacing like a snake
the whisper struggling
the whisper no longer romancing
who am I to turn over then and sigh
who am I
to unknot the web of dreams
and leave a story unstarted
to fetch a better ending in this awful reality
and who are you
so many years in my ear without much distance?



The Death Of Equal Handshakes


Morning's words fell like confetti,
Piled like straw.
Words popped as wide as balloons.
The others floated away
With nametags still on their waists.
The print is too small.

The only man on the bus line
Suspects you for something.
He hides his face in his coat
But he won't tell you why.

The only man on the road
depends on the starlight
over man-made directions.

And the man of the sea
counts ships on his own two hands
When the waving of the sails is all he has.



Lyric Of The Night


Some nights I must go back to where that city lives
and the red bulbs flash
With their hot wires, and the green lights cue our steps, and to hurtle in
any direction
Is to know these shocks are transitory as last night.

And I must see every Stop sign
in stark red, and detours wrench, derailing misplaced ships
Risking the wheel at the dock, grandstanding.
That is how the city exists,
Some addresses were plain, some towered, but each one,
like a mountain, does not truly invite you.
Street signs
intersect
like a knight's folded arms.
How pretty to guard a lyric of the night!



The Morality Struggle


The pathological
Burn a hole in our wallpaper
They eat up our children.
Their hands are always shaking
Like a trembling bough.
Assertion could be a careful peck
Bread could be an extra loaf.
They know the danger flairs by rote.
There is something intimate about this coupling
You're taking in tea. The birds are singing.
Her poison bottles are emptying,
They spill on your couch.
And you ask without return.
Maybe, in an hour. you could be chums
Walk into a store and buy the same detective book.
Maybe, if there's time, you'll be the same crook!
A lot of things can happen in an hour.
In one hour I can take your bruise,
You can bleed my hemorrhage.
Our chests can be opened
to the same weapons.
We can be found walking circles late at night
Our eclipses barely touching.
We can become spies on the ethereal
and blow out a star.
There are too many hiding
still symbolic, God isn't safe.
Nor my friend you are.