by P. J. Williams
1.
Out of the burnished
burdensome, a flare
goes up : cardinal
-winged Novalight, waves
upon wings & the untorched
touching : synapse
to starlight to the membrane
of “I,” intracellular, ionic
or eonic – time itself
abundant, time itself
because it burns self
-same a soot-cored
softening left to slag.
2.
Novalight touches old
antis, says to me interstitial
til the cows come home, come Hell
or high moonshine.
Restlessness symptomatic of
absence, an anti that has
gravity, has marooned
into maroon. Novalight
says what limited evidence there is
points to your anti : water
that can't swallow this particular flame.
A violent romance of bright
white candles behind my eyes.
3.
Novalight says augur
what you will but I'm tellin you
you can tell a difference
from a same ol same ol like knowing
burrowing from earth
augering. I believe in multitudes
of kinesis : shade from light, digging
from shade, finding from
digging, losers-weepers from
finders-keepers
& who can eat all five hearts
of an earthworm the fastest.
4.
Let the stomach melt
the capsule, let Novalight shine
its powdered body into mine – you are made
of many things : paper, touch
-screens, spheres & spheres gridded
& girded, abundancies & burns
bright white. I am becoming useful
as a signal flare.
5.
26Mg holds old stories
coagulated into light : mass-produced
aging stars, their ordinary
explosions – death ain't nothin
but a maroon maw, a loosed up
moonshine moonsong, Novalight says.
I still. I hold my ear to the ground
wire & listen for the dissolution rumble.
6.
The 3rd-most present
element in saltwater, through which
Novalight bends : pull
that bottom up, kid, & sour
on your own taste. Algae
poultices against a brackish,
stagnant shore, cups sun
& chloro-chews it green
& Novalight has that look I can't tell
from malice or maroon.
7.
Novalight & Starchild walk into a bar.
Each says I'd rather be
with you & takes a seat closest
to the rows of bourbon – they refuse
the startender's offer
of a free sample of commercial
apple pie moonshine.
I am at the other end
of time, cutting lines
in the interstellar medium
with my Visa card.
I hear Novalight say to Starchild
Heidegger said they are the Shepherds
of Funk – that their responsibility to themselves
is music & therein lies the problem : earth
is an old asteroid laden
with stories it doesn't know
how to sing.
8.
The corrosive properties
of blood, Novalight explains,
keep y'all from getting too comfortable
in your crusty skins.
I blame my anti for my want-to.
I blame my maroon
for music on the pull
of the almost-extinguished
my-grain : synapses
deficient on Mg like a bird with no bell.
9.
Or a bird that big bangs
its face to its face on a window pane :
false recognition of a feathered
self – hollow-boned, a fragile
alloy, an oxidized outer &
anti, a cockatoo cocktail sputtering
atop the washing machine,
which Novalight says might as well
be the way all this works you know : churn
churn til spun not dripping but
damp & a loon on our shoulders.
10.
Novalight holds out its breathless
palm full of ice crystals & big big
matter & antis & says
Which of these
do you think
is best for making your brain
breathe slowly on the window so you can
finger a new name
in the condensation
like it's not a question.
I choose the tidiest
& smallest cinder burning
white & watch my skin turn
clear. Novalight becomes 60%
my bones.
11.
I eat Novalight once
a day – in the morning between
anti & matterful noon.
Basic functions of the cells
are laddersongs : bootsteps
up at an even pace & the rattling
gutters beneath the weight
of me & Novalight & the anti
lolling on my numbed tongue.
12.
Rules of attraction : ions
bend space toward a light
-hearted metal, bend
potential to kinetic
& spent – force
-fed forcefields until Novalight
yells from my bones How
about now like it's also
not a question, yells How
now is about now & nothing
else like an else is an anti-anti.
Novalight is also 39%
intracellular & makes my monster
grow afraid of the big beamingness
coiling braids of blood
behind my white-light eyes.