Monday, August 17, 2015

James Diaz- Three Poems


The task of odd angles

Manage me Buddha
figure me out God

I have a small pit 
along the curve of my back
where psychic debt
has been charged
with the impossible task
of keeping me aglow 

writ in seven different languages
how much I hate the term 'work ethic'
how easy it is to slip
and fall into someone else's bad day.

If there is love
it will not go until it is has bruised
every corner of drywall
you attached soul to

a song is still a song
even when it's a poem.



Then there was laughter

There is why and there is why
there is

here you have no family
no beef with

anyone

in person
in particular
the way the world can spin off its axis

the way you undress
like there is no tomorrow

no rescue dogs
no safe words

bare cupboards broken things
inside broken things
reaching for receding salve 

you and I alone
before the day even begins
heavy thought beside sleeping objects
beside/besides who can know this?
I ask

then just stay silent

while we both ache
with misplaced memory

shelved near 
nada. 



A conversation between friends

Wounded sick 
long line of flame
previously I held onto light
until my body was an organ bursting into number
a feather trigger sprouting
migratory diagrams underneath the table

O universal reprimand
I can hear you breathing
this is what happens to insight when it fakes its own fortitude
a strong wind can break a house
in two
and you will wonder whose road home
drew you out of the shadows

the distance is inside of you like an experience you cannot shake
fog pouring in around the broken stem
I live here, I sleep when I am able
almost never

you pass the self so that we can watch
language like a cloth
scatter toward the sun

we travel and we dwell inside of our childhood homes
because the word that we are after
is hid inside of these walls somewhere.




Author Bio: James Diaz spends his time writing poetry as if his life depended on it, because it does. His forms of survival can be found in Ditch, Calliope, Cheap Pop Lit, Pismire, Collective Exile, My Favorite Bullet, and The Idiom. Do not follow him. He does not like to lead.
 

1 comment:

  1. The last 3 lines of A Conversatiin between Friends could stand alone.. so much depth..

    ReplyDelete