The Day of the Red Vespers – D.C. Wojciech
September 24, 2019
ABOUT LAST NIGHT
I taught myself to die into every exhale.
it was silent when the sun fell.
nobody really saw the clouds turn red.
the thunder clapped & lightning cried.
I went home. now every moment is a new spring.
cross-eyed javalinas devoured
every trash can on the block.
tonight we take revenge by burning down the landfills.
pack rats on hunger strike in yr prayers
fucking up the linoleum.
an entire congregation of mourners
holding the line behind yr eyes.
looking through each drop of rain
for a sign.
a whole new world the first time I saw
someone pass a bus transfer to a stranger.
a Pangaea in the new cortex
reminds you to look over yr shoulder
always at the right time.
on the corner where talismans
just look up at you sideways.
walking out of body down Broadway & Market.
the center of the universe.
THE BREAK OF DAYLIGHT
morning of blue skies & sugar cane.
black crow’s long summer mask.
lemons peeled for the tea.
Sisyphus digs rock n roll now.
I spent the whole night saying don’t talk to the cops
, don’t talk to the cops, don’t talk to the cops…
always give alms for the neighborhood soothsayer.
tell yr cousins there isn’t enough kevlar
for everyone to just go around praying.
draw the water before you start the stove.
you never know how many eyes are at yr six.
one last glimpse of the burning stars.
a quest for fire. armed with song & rainwater.
who is at the helm—
always an invisible sadness in the air.
stampedes in the alley. voices in the stomach.
tomorrow’s leaking gondolas have not yet set sail.
and what of today—
yr defiant crutch? yr naked dream?
our promise stopped calling this home in 1989.
IN THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US
“In the turning of this sea of sand by day and in the turning of the stars in the night sky,
in the perfectly clear silences that stood like sentinels guarding sleep, I watched the world I knew leave me and another world appear”
– Joan Halifax
the healers stand de-loused & naked in the margins of history.
spell it out if you have to. the only thing in yr apartment
that won’t grow legs when the smokers leave.
flight of the owl halted in the right eye of creation—
vertigo eclipsed awakening
silver stair cases in the mind’s empty alleys
follow incense
follow the candle
ghosts of solitary praying for yr horizons…
when last night’s thunder leaves yr ears
make the moments count themselves—
these forests know what they know
seeing eye to eye with cardinal.
spilling insight across the wingspan of the out-breath.
cicada’s eminence overthrown by thunder.
the rise of planetary bodies.
the long walk through serpentine corridors—
collecting rainwater.
chanting strange visions.
spelling love with fist first.
night doesn’t fall. it leaps.
choose the stairs or the elevator
before you lock eyes with an unbroken horse.
make yr eyes the size of two pennies
before you go looking for loop holes.
cicadas persist—
summer’s silent films,
oleander blooms in the sun’s bloodshot eyes
early September & still enamored
while heeding piano voices
conclusive evidence that this water is walkable
no turning yr back on this now
April’s showers died long ago…