By Paul Toppo
There�s this bloated float in my brain,
that swings into action at unexpected
moments
boasting
of an edge so fine upon
infinitesimal edge, though it is unable
to negotiate
my release at crushing dawn;
a ray, bent like the sudden
spike
in my arm, erases the slow
lines that mix
through it,
press
the revolution on me, pure
like a stone grown
frictionless
in the moonless ether
of time�s collapse.
(like an ass in black slacks),
It swings into action, Father
and does not tremble
above your grave
of such liquids
of your choosing, but
between guilty dawns
skips in and out
of its own
deadly rhythms
making the horizon
endlessly seem
to disappear
***
"Beside You"
By Paul Toppo
Their little spans of attention make them
walk like chimpanzees
with cell phones that discharge pricklike
signals, flooding
valleys of effortless knuckles, dragged
upon equatorial lines.
The impulse to die or kiss
the next soul
never
overtakes them, but
goes simply through
(like a shadow)
Because each moment�s
virtually an equipoise
of stars
before glass, halved
mechanically until
Celestial verses rap and hop
in their heads, confused
confusing like programs
with life�s
gorgeous, gangrenous
limb, wildly
Hacked
off at the knee,
at the heart,
in whose forgotten footprints
agonize all that�s left
of enormous
passions
grown old
as whispers,
as absurd
as tommorrow
***
"Finney's Drinking Again"
By Paul Toppo
Who hangs this drunk
attitude on an inverted
crucifix?
tying a time together in a
vicious tomb while
a song goes
skipping
over the grooves like
a syringe bouncing off a vein.
his loose mood lifts
the stillborn moon out
of a crib of wax
it's dark again, and I
have diminished to
the suburbs.
the poplar holds
birdsong (between
the teeth of the leaves)
her eyes broken, guiding
my dreams into what they,
tommorrow, might have become.