I like the intricacies of verse,
multiple syllables strewn together in a formal
translation, a bump and struggle
for quick
comprehension before the next lines are said.
I’m not interested in vague references
which take hours of drudgery to scratch the surface
of. Depth
is different than underscoring
one’s education. Don’t leave me in the dust,
Love, teach me something new.
Peal my eyes back with knowledge of the art that you are,
touch your skin to mine and teach me every inch
of the shimmering atoms that make you
up. Pendulum, pendulum, knock me back and give me your momentum,
we’ve been doing this energy dance forever,
so let’s try something new.
Fuck the carnal nature out of me.
Rip the energy from me and leave my black hole
self gaping and staring into the universe of you.
Surprise me, Love. I’ve been dead
so many times I’m sure I’m the reason numbers exist
(so count me).
And still I’ve got this voice in my head that feels to me
instead of speaks that this time,
this formation of art
and atoms, this sculpted machine
made to observe and interact,
is significant.
The first black hole we—as a society—found,
we thought was our first contact with other life
out in the dark.
Our satellite—and by “our” I mean,
the thing crafted of atoms by other atoms—
picked up a pulsing heat signal.
A sun, some red giant
was being swallowed before it’s time
and sending out those pulses
at intervals—panicking and wailing out one last S.O.S. signal
to anything with the technology to listen.
Screaming with light and heat across
the empty.
Our first almost contact with other life
turned out to be discovery of ultimate death—
a hole in the bubble of our universe
and our comfort. That sign of great light,
that beacon, that lighthouse
was destroyed by a tidal wave of ultimate dark
that may be the key
to this whole existence thing. I wish I saw the expressions
of NASA’s soldiers when they knew a darkness
never comprehended before.
So give me references, give me Virgil,
Plato,
Umberto,
and Cosmo,
and I will lay you down so hard you will remember the feeling
of this life
thing that embodies every inch of you,
because there is real darkness
and we have all known death.
So let me find the universe of you
in your eyes, your smile, and your syllables.
Give me a good fuck—I mean bring me so close
to God I stop asking why—and who you are,
give me the black holes of you—your flaws,
or maybe, your perfections—
cause God put us here to learn something new, and evolve.