Spinozablue: An Eclectic Journal of the Arts

A Deep Dark Line

I’m so excited about the wound
That stretches across the skin
Divi­sion under a toothed piece of glass
Opens to a field of cir­cum­spec­tion–
Can’t we agree we can’t take back what’s lost

In the quiet now a pond set­tles our reflec­tion
Sin­u­ous strands motion for us under cur­rent
Rot­ten stumps of bark-​​a lonely plot of grass
The pig-​​headed calm before the blitz of rain
A deep dark line numbs the nip­ping tiny fish

Sur­face of the Moon

Now if some­one would take the time to ask how you feel
Instead of mak­ing the same old small talk
You’d know just what to do with your pager
You might not even worry so much about the accent
Sling­ing your arm round to the back­seat
Why you might even step over the line and ask me
Always with the same curios­ity in the back of your mind
Could I be some­one inter­ested in a gloomy dri­ver
I would catch you in the mir­ror and know
Time would be a fac­tor and that cam­era pinned to the visor
Would some­day reveal that the pas­sion was exactly that
And not just a quirky fan­tasy I’ve had for so long
Because I’ve always wanted to prove I’m not really that way
I’d never hold the exotic shad­ows the moon casts on your face
Against you

Prayer for the Self­ish

What we want is to say the most elo­quent thing
To stop the world dead in its tracks
Our advice would come out like a stam­mer
A diplo­matic slap to the cheek
But when we think of what the mon­keys go through
And the rab­bits leak­ing Javex from their eyes
A tis­sue will do or a sock jammed in our mouths
Because if we could sit still for an hour
Then it would be a cinch
Only the night­time would be a bother
And the tun­nel under­ground
Would come as a relief
To have that moment to our­selves
To kneel and let each breath curl into itself
And evolve into dis­tant wis­dom for untrained ears

_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​

Desi Di Nardo’s work has been pub­lished in numer­ous North Amer­i­can and inter­na­tional jour­nals and antholo­gies, per­formed at the National Arts Cen­tre, fea­tured in Poetry on the Way on the Toronto Tran­sit Com­mis­sion, selected by Canada’s Par­lia­men­tary Poet Lau­re­ate, and dis­played in the Offi­cial Res­i­dences of Canada. See www​.desid​i​nardo​.com

Copy­right ©2008, Desi Di Nardo and Spin­oz­ablue. All Rights Reserved.