Posted on: October 7, 2008
Beautiful Vagabonds
I am not the piston in the flower or
The bulging seed throttled by pollen
But a separate figure expectant and
Cupped by the shape palms make
Holding sumptuously to the fragile
Killings – crickets, bees, and moths
The soulful water strider apparently
Impervious to deep mirrored waters
And the lotus lilies rooted in mire
Look up at me
Look into me
I am the wind-loving swallow
Lighter than the air itself
Rippling my whole transience
Renascent by the threat of rain
--by Desi Di Nardo
Previously published in the September 2008 Arts & Culture issue of Our Neighbourhood Magazine.
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.desidinardo.com
Copyright ©2008, by…
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Posted on: September 29, 2008
The Shriek
On the edge of her lip, like a car
balanced on the brink of a precipice,
the shriek has halted, swaying.
Just one spasm, and all of her anger
would gush down noisily, sweeping
sighs and placid thoughts away.
We could try to rescue those inside
the shaky car before it plunges
to the bottom of the crag, but nothing
curable is in that mouthful of vibrations.
And the force of a thousand hurricanes
locked in a chest then suddenly released
would not suffice to wash such evil.
In the end what is unavoidable befalls,
and the tenacity of her facial muscles
is not worth the trouble. Ineffectual,
however long she strives, to hold her breath.
No human can contain a lifetime’s pain.
The Effort
Moon shines while billions
of corpses rot
beneath earth’s crust.
—Shinkichi Takahashi
Man’s sight is dim.
Man’s look is squint.
Man’s eye is corrupt.
Man…
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Posted on: September 29, 2008
Atonement
Grind your teeth on atonement pangs. Lone rocks crop the low sky. You reach up with a steady hand. The clouds elude you.
Walk the brown stream, dip in your hands and face, drink deep. Forget the water leads always down. Brown drops crumble in heat to ascend, as must you.
2.
You’ve got to stumble three times. You try to walk, and that staggers your first summers. Drink love and fall forever.
You enter the brown room, where an hour stretches to blackness before time, songs flash bright between your ears, there is no difference between the song and your voice, your mind.
3.
You bleed brown into your chest, your head.
Luck cleaves to the gray channels. Don’t cling
too tight, you might miss it. Keep one eye open,
or you’ll miss her. Two eyes, and she’ll run away.
4.
You dive through the murk to the stone, pry it loose with tired fingers. Every day you dive
again, lungs…
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