Take a shower. Wash past away. Watch it get sucked down the drain. Clean out all the debris
between words. Smile at someone, anyone. Make love to a loved one. Make love to anyone.
We keep walking away from the tea kettle on the stove. We don’t hear it when it whistles. We
have destroyed three this winter.
It takes a certain artistic temperament to take a drag on a cigarette and to exhale it
erotically.
The taste of my coffee today at Spot Café is particularly busy.
A bog rests in her eyes when she looks at me and smiles.
Where was the present tense when I needed it?
Travelling should always be a pilgrimage.
Wait for the sun to move so you can sit in the shade. Wait for your breath to make song. WAIT
or WALK. Choices. Meet a friend at the library. Meet a stranger in a book. Before you go to bed,
pardon yourself. Kiss ancestors. Wash their bones.
We come from a people who spoke small words
with their tongues tethered to bad weather
and the stain of holy water on
forehead, heart, two shoulders.
It takes discipline to conjure forgotten taboos,
or divine from shards of broken beer bottles.
A hawk buzzed the couple walking towards me and perched on a low branch. Hawk flying, hawk
spotted. Hawk perched.
A resting head turned backwards is a life lived upside down. You hear the past in old words,
you rest your head, turned backwards, but can’t remember what you heard. Nothing lost cannot
be found. A rested head turned backwards was a life lived upside down.
It sounds like a motorcycle is inside my head.
between words. Smile at someone, anyone. Make love to a loved one. Make love to anyone.
We keep walking away from the tea kettle on the stove. We don’t hear it when it whistles. We
have destroyed three this winter.
It takes a certain artistic temperament to take a drag on a cigarette and to exhale it
erotically.
The taste of my coffee today at Spot Café is particularly busy.
A bog rests in her eyes when she looks at me and smiles.
Where was the present tense when I needed it?
Travelling should always be a pilgrimage.
Wait for the sun to move so you can sit in the shade. Wait for your breath to make song. WAIT
or WALK. Choices. Meet a friend at the library. Meet a stranger in a book. Before you go to bed,
pardon yourself. Kiss ancestors. Wash their bones.
We come from a people who spoke small words
with their tongues tethered to bad weather
and the stain of holy water on
forehead, heart, two shoulders.
It takes discipline to conjure forgotten taboos,
or divine from shards of broken beer bottles.
A hawk buzzed the couple walking towards me and perched on a low branch. Hawk flying, hawk
spotted. Hawk perched.
A resting head turned backwards is a life lived upside down. You hear the past in old words,
you rest your head, turned backwards, but can’t remember what you heard. Nothing lost cannot
be found. A rested head turned backwards was a life lived upside down.
It sounds like a motorcycle is inside my head.
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Garrett Phelan is the author of the chapbook Outlaw Odes (Antrim House) and the micro-chapbooks Unfixed Marks and Standing where I am (Origami Poem Project). His poems have appeared in numerous publications, including Harpy Hybrid, Slipstream, Potomac Review, Connecticut River Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, and Third Wednesday. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee. He has taught poetry in a variety of locations, most recently in a maximum-security prison in Connecticut.
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