SURVIVAL MECHANISM
For a land-grab moment,
I am eight years old,
A celebrant in heaven.
Hand in hand with
My daughters.
Glory, elation, youth.
Tantrums of joy
Elucidated by their
Chyron thoughts,
“I like the sound of skipping.”
The sidewalk rises.
We fall. Feathers. We rise again.
“Chickaboom, Chickaboom.”
We play with air,
Fight gravity to deathlife.
In the levity of the sun,
Levitations dispel lamentations.
We’re in the future. Forever now.
“Chickaboom, Chickaboom.
Skipping’s good for you.”
Enraptured by
Elementary logic:
“If you do it for a long time,
You eventually get tired
And that’s good for your diet.”
Salient rhythms, survival beats,
“This one feels like you’re riding a horse.”
Energy. Flow. Our feet above the wind,
More currants, bird tweets, autumn leaves.
Scent of pumpkin pie, “Chickaboom, Chickaboom.”
Hallelujah.
HOW TO WEAVE GOLD
I’ve never been shot.
At. Toward. Nearby. From above.
But that doesn’t mean it
Hasn’t happened.
CCTV, can you see me?
I pick my nose,
Adjust my crotch.
Do things people do.
In silence. In jest.
In the middle of a lake in Siberia.
A viral flea on a massive white board.
Not today. Today, I weave gold.
I put on my Supertunica.
Coronate my cloak of immunity,
Like I felt when I lost my virginity.
Ten feet tall flush with fluids.
I take each ridiculous arrow,
Brandish my hands and
Curdle the dark into light.
Filaments of joy transform
Unseen faces into raw materials:
Toys of industry, dogs of dignity.
I’m a cantilevered beam.
I uphold the universe.
This is my cup of tea.
I’ll drink it. Thank you very much.
HARVEST
If birth is spring,
I am autumn leaves,
October pumpkins, fulgent,
A taste of relished sun.
Inside this light my organs
Rise and fall, spread steadfast
Continuity, coagulate into a
Recipe of organic crystal to
Develop within the fluttering
Foliage of the future.
How much time? How many
More scars creep toward my
Brown skin? Splatter sometimes
Singes the mind’s stove—sticks to
The grains of wheat threshed long ago.
Orange, yellow, hints of black, the
Melange of me harvests the
Faded joys, despairs, plateaus—
Curdles them into a delicious
Breaded creature to be eaten
By all of time’s seasons.
THE LUXURY
Luxury is a way of
watching the news numb
to the bombs, the bullets,
the mass destruction,
the latest city to come under the
heel of federal troops—
while fresh eggs cool in
the refrigerator, without
Concern as to provenance
Or price, without leaving the
House to walk in the real world
Because someone you
Will never see again delivers
Your next meal, numb to
The darkness that wells at
The edge of the window,
Numb to the pain of someone
Else’s disease—numb being
The operative synonym for
Ignorance—uncaring, unknowing,
And every existential
Gerund in the world’s dictionaries
That might not be cracked
open—save for when a chyron
Spewing gerund-head person
On the idiot box says
Something from the comfort of
A blue sofa that looks good
with a fluorescent filter
or a B-roll of said
person in a field of
California poppies, mindless
to the other realities of
Insufferable horror, devoid
Of honor, blind to the
Weeds growing in the
Garden of democracy,
the foxes anew in the henhouse,
All the things unsaid that
linger on the menu of
The American cuisine restaurant
that has never seen the light of
said person on TV—in
fact, this is all just a
way of being indifferent
Comfortably. Let’s
wallow in the pain of
Uncomfortableness and
fill the sky with
beautiful answers.
A native of Southern California who’s lived in New York City for the past 30 years, Kelvin writes poetry because he must. The title poem of his debut collection “Whispers of a Dying Sun” first appeared in Spillway #25 in Aug. 2017, and his poem ”Ol’ Rusty” appeared in Dime Show Review (Volume 3, Issue 2) in Dec. 2019. In July, he attended the three-week summer poetry workshop taught by poet Margaret Ross at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. In the fall, he attended the Cave Canem regional workshop in NYC with poet Samiya Bashir, which culminated in November readings at the GuggenheimMuseum.
Featured image “Cucurbita 2011” photographed by George Chernilevsky to be licensed via creative commons 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
