Alex Lemon



OBLATION


                and I bellow out and the whole bed it shakes
                and you smile at my laugh as it rocks you awake
                                       —Bonnie “Prince” Billy


Hush—I am coming to you for the body,
the miracle of graceless breathing.
Will you moan me the blues of black eyes,

a rusty washboard roaching away the day?
Please, I’ve put a bandana over my frog-
hearted dog’s eyes. Take a picture,

it’ll be priceless. Today, the sun will sniff
our crotches until dusk, but I can’t wait
on my rock at the river’s edge forever.

I have to pretend the water is feverish
or nail-hard candy. I sing half-breasted
hymns for insomnia & strum my air banjo

trying to remember a Robert Frost poem
about a boy who lops off his hand while dreaming
of corn dogs. Or maybe I’m thinking of the care-

package I sent you. A famous donkey rider once said
everything is about losing—or a confusion of milk
if you know the secret handshake. The small bibles

on my rock turn out to be worms or milfoil or maybe not.
The ants are lazy & manic, flowing in & out & over.
They dance their winking eyes, butt one another

before lifting & teetering, toppling into the smooth-
skinned water. It is not as the wind predicted.
This is not a ha ha beard, not my boondoggle lips.

Hurry. I swear it’ll be priceless. I have pockets
Spilling with nameless things, & my patent
on whistling doesn’t expire ‘til noon.


+++


FROM HALLELUJAH BLACKOUT


Unconscious is a deafening chug of daylight

Enlightenment shoos away the asking

Your dreams are skin-sore and useless

A dead dog plays dead, practices its forever

The steelworker waves the white flag

Morning wakes without independence

Therefore, the thing, and the thing

With an independence, also fills with the pain of asking

Bring in the sock-headed dolls, the other words

Who knows the material existence

Again—the blind man dyes his hair

While the blue bird dies alone

Thank you for asking

The object, the thing, the something

Sense and certainty sit singing the step-son’s lament

Yes to the hands of truth; but this is straight-line light

By itself, it is a storm of asking

We want to figure out the vanishing point

Sip and sip and pass to our opposite-self

From a being of mercy, birds flew into my head

And again, into another being of asking

The island of sugar sinks in an accident of leaves

In the trees, there is an accident of music

Dancing becomes the one more time

A must-known-self enters exposing, not asking

The effect is immediate and vast

Bones of brush stroke, blur of a bee

Determined are the power lines

Down in the morning, they failed without asking


TYPO 5