Five Untitled Poems by Simon Perchik
*
You brush the way ink
falls apart on a page
though your hair never dries
folded and unfolded, over and over
till an old love note arrives
in the crease you can’t see through
already a floodgate
and across a river
that is no longer walls
or their shadows —you are washed away
by the lingering caress
your foot leaves underneath
as gravel :what all words hold back
when they say it was long ago
and her name as if she was here
in writing and with a simple splash
surrounds your still warm arm
already in two, half you, half everything.
*
This cup must know its cracks
will never let go
struggles the way a spider
begins as a single thread
and water not yet water
—you sip so the rim
weakens from inside and the Earth
empties, lies motionless
left to hide among the afternoons
although you drink from the dirt
helpless to dry
without your lips under it
—this cup can’t go on
and the spoon overhead
circling tighter and tighter
uncertain where to stop
—mouthful by frayed mouthful
you flow into a great river
already leaving
are carried along for later
as if the sky was once your flesh
won’t loosen its hold
though you keep filling the cup
with flowers, sunlight
more and more flowers.
*
You’re never sure though the pages
fit —it’s a small stove
used to walls that have no pictures
—it doesn’t have to remember anymore
why sparks take such a hold
and little by little in secret
the way sunlight shields the Earth
from night after night the floor
that never really warms
—you keep adding flames
as if this old newspaper would still yellow
become leaves again and slowly
an invisible bird climbing immense
till there’s no light left to breathe
only the stars, tighter and tighter
circling the sun to silence it
—each evening alone, hands held out
you set fire an endless sorrow
and the plume already dry
shedding its darkness on the ground
for later and your shadow.
*
Lost and without a wall you are unsure
what stays dark, what will move
once a flashlight is waved in front
and the plane in the picture begins to
flicker
taking hold one hand all these years
dead, smothered under the frame
half dry wood, half morning
and though there’s no sky yet
you are flying again
wobbled by winds no one sees anymore
making room in the fleece-lined glove
that can’t tell where your fingers are.
*
For the last time this overpass
reaching out and the invisible horse
half spray, half these cobblestones
that follow you around each corner
—four legs and still you stumble
carried up by the uncut flowers
you hold on to though this on and on
is already aimless, falling from rooftops
as rain and on your shoulders more feathers
—you are flying the way this street
loosens from its stones the weightlessness
that covers every grave and overflows
lifts the sky across —midair
you sift for runoff and from below
the unwanted shadows cling to you
—all these thorns :step by step
each splash fastens on just one foot
though you dig without any dirt or shovel.