Two by
dan raphael
With Dancers All Around
Stainless angles, porthole opals
hands can scoop like melons, multiple
temperatures and as many scents
as rainforest plant-life sealed in some
semi-porous eyes only a fraction
can be seen of
Mutual revelation, time-elapse acknowledgement
of our wobbling white-steel sun,
a million missing rivets
weaving blankets of whisper
where wind won’t enter
cause the ground is too corrosive,
moisture with too many questions
The spongey nonchalance of soil
too complex to be touched, unlocked
as time flows, compact, astringent
fertilizer in half the capillaries,
little wings on heels & temples,
hearts calloused but silky
Stripping away the thousand skins
of this rich blue water
that disappears when stopped or cursed,
continues when drunk, impelling the throat
onto a highway of unspoken conversations
as rapids query & inform
each rock & dead tortoise,
eyelets of greening information
allergic to light-catching thought
Germ and husk removed,
fat rubbed into tiny circles
like those irrigating a desert
so what can explode on riverbanks
as everything burnt fattens somewhere
leaving the living water tears approximate
enveloping personal gravity
“You’ve been making the wrong mistakes”
—Theolonious Monk
got a moon in my pocket, not sure which one,
maybe Demos, maybe Pan, lighting up a night
i’ll never get to, exhausted by corners, uncontrollable intersections
this city’s scalp parted so many ways
fashion falls flat when the wind skips town
not gravity holding everything but inertia,
lack of agency, agility, tripping over time,
scratching boredom’s abrasions, internal clefts and cliffs.
more lines than structure, strutcure
when the door unlocks but the window’s stubborn
boxcars at my feet, reconstruction in my future,
a double digit chord rivuleting the ambiance
the way no smoking clipped light’s indoor pallet
can’t wait for hearts to align, for lungs to agree
on what to filter, what to tithe, how anything can be
held too long—its value, its integrity—
a slow bus of nuance, the express train of wow
as many folds as possible, a festival of doorways
atomizing direction and definition, bottles go by on bicycles
without friction it’s all slide,
when walls are allowed to choose
denying our freedom to vague and shrug
everything i cook has a little ash in it,
from paper herb or desiccated phrase
start at the middle and send out questions, bait, one bar of melody
steps that go neither up nor down, a panorama 95% obstructed,
sun enclouded so long its throat’s too dry to even whisper
what can i turn on to make things darker, a chess-like game
where 1 side has lights, the other has columns and mirrors
by the time i could see i’d forgotten where i was
walking the back beat, dancing beyond measure
start with iron instead of wood
from swamp to smelter
gleaming without fire
a sky without light, a street without a city
diaphanous complexity
when every device needs to be recharged
but no outlets, input swelling the windowpanes
my uncorrected eyes find letters in asphalt, between trees,
the calligraphy of neglected furniture, when everything’s played
and nothing works, i take off my hat but soon there’s another one there
i’m not clothed but laminated, my doctor says the pearl in me
must be removed and no i can’t have it back
dan raphael feels most fortunate to have had two poetry collections published in 2020—Moving with Every from Flowstone Press in June, and Starting Small from Alien Buddha Press in October. Most Wednesdays dan writes and records a current events poem for The KBOO Evening News.