siri

siri

poems by leum

tasogare

a dog & his cat

&

a pantheon of sunflower palindromes sometimes arranging constellations agape with sunflower seeds

tasogare

hereafter i keep writing the same line with all the wrong words fading furthermore my dreams on the wall are chipping tangent entanglement i want to walk without ever taking a step wring in the moon whenever i fall from a tree sinking whenever i want to call out the sun a shooting star shooting at me paint the sea turtle dripping

a dog & his cat

stand talk about fairy tales no one ever believes in i was drinking all the space inbetween oil ex matriculation and oh the sky is eating colors off your drama dream

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And this is how most lives begin, sipping a warm cup of milk waiting for the morning to arrive, a steady enclosure of light persuading the dark patches to leave, later becoming shadows of the sun. Two figures in the sky’s distance, one approaching the other. The apartment was stern and budged a few words, but nothing out of the ordinary. It was autumn’s fault-line brushstrokes on the tree-scape, winter nearing to wipe it most off.

Though just some sprinkles of snow, drizzles from overfilled roofs and branches. An air so quiet, toes curled up listening to it. Squirrels noticed their cues to prance around in jolly weather, the dogs in their fences sat up to a rustling white, folks turned in their beds a dozen times over. How would any beast know the world would end that same night.

Bunch of trams stuck sudden on their tracks, stacked & huddled close. Three crosses at a gas station, once streetlights. I want to give this street meaning without walking on it. Maybe smell the flowers for once before pulling them off to make my own bouquets.

This town has many colors, and many more names, and has taken so many more breaths than the sky. A second here amounts to days where most open their eyes. Over here, night is but a fleeting moment. The stars have their own thrones to fickle in. See all the shooting stars dancing just now? They’re just glances in a city’s rush-hour traffic.

Rosebud fashion this spring, night is yet to arrive.

Aromas blend with each other, coffee and beer. This year is blessed with overgrown blossoms on century-old shrines. Do you not see them, the vines with their teeth on the concrete? Miles away, but still so beautiful.

Let’s talk about the love letters never sent, and what colors our eyes can change to. You keep dreaming in and out of being, as if you were a painting I’ve long forgotten how to paint. Where do the words go when they’re not said? I have a

million guesses, but you never shake your head to what I say.

Oh woe the words and what they may think! Winding wind with wine while worn we water. I get it, whatever. It’s not like the miniscule nanosecond moments of every waking sun hinges on this very weather. But I talk too much, go on.

Oh, you’re here again. How frightening to have watched you gone. While you were away, the clouds blew and scared the wolves. The daisies changed the current streams to better tap their roots. To think the mountains haven’t roared in weeks!

Better yet, the trees keep switching spots, how fun. I guess it’s time to tell you why you’re here, and what you did to get to this far, far place.

You were human once, a living, breathing machine. Your eyes were closed whenever they saw the sun, and they bowed for the moon. However far you were from the sea, you could always hear the waves. Even with the wind and rain, you still managed to feel each littoral push and pull. But then you figured it out, every single note and key.

All this now is an echo of the past, the future only bigger waves of that same echo. We have had this chess conversation multiple times already, even before you & I. So what matters most is what’s already happened, since that entails what happens.

I know, I know, it’s rather annoying, but still peculiar that it’s always us taking this dance, don’t you think? And it looks like this is going to keep happening until we agree on something important.

There you are, wandering around the wildflowers. From the looks of it, you’ve caught sight of those blueberries that want to eat the world blue; good thinking on gobbling some of them, your blue eyes show it. Either way, I’ve got this jazz band playing not too far from here; they’re on a hill that overlooks the town’s lit-less alleyways. Come, we shouldn’t be so late.

Just now, a starling-feathered woodpecker climbed the tallest tree with its beak. Seconds later, a spider butterfly ate its feelings away. The orchestra of the cicadas completely gone, I’ve noticed the moon hum rainbows into the thin, blank air. You’re verses away from me, but I’m right here, footsteps next to you.

Yeah and all that jazz, huh. Neon spotlights remark on hubris and habitual humanities. It’s loud in here and everyone is naked. Bonfires laugh at each other’s flames. Take me back home

when you see Haley’s comet more than infinity, I’ll have to show you the eternal insides of a black hole.

Look at all the stars on your skin, you’re nervous. You shouldn’t wander far in your vein’s tunnels, it’ll only get you further down a deep red. What’s got you coloring in millenniums, chalk on the sky. A whirlwind whirlpool cascades frivol in your walk.

I can see all the talk the same, a talk with shame, as if you’ve done something wrong. But you can do nothing wrong, your highness, you’re it all. I’m just a sheet of paper talking straight through the wall.

In another life, we were sitting beside one another as the first sun fell, shadowing the entire city. Our eyes never let go, our handprints ever locked on the cement. That was hours ago, and now the rainfall greets the streets. How film noir this block looks, and over there, a gray scale world waits to be technicolored. What that there highlights are the headlights of lives flickering on and off their tabloids and burdens. Patterns bet on their chance for a moment’s truth; seagulls occupy the same post, leaving when randomness catches them; all the years of time gather around a campfire, bouncing off each other’s sentences.

The crowd screams, what more do you want! Well, here I am trying to pick out the sun from all these stars. Feasting on the moon, I’ve become the night of day waiting for the trees to crack this cement. I’m tired of only being a reflection in your eyes. So what we stole the world for one afternoon, calling each other reflecting hyperbolic hypotenuses.

I want to be able to answer every question with just a smile, pointing to the sea. Come here and take your clothes off. It’s beginning to hail.

Don't you want to feel the rocks of forever?

The sound grew louder with each step down to the basement.

You thought I forgot the basement?

A dandelion sits perched on the morning-side day of yon hill. What a red Chevrolet passing by, awaiting with its tires the crunch of such a sweet dandelion; it drives and drives to find just this one dandelion. Some days, it waits for nothing but the soft hush of such a crush. Evelyn, the dandelion’s called.

Eventually, the flower is caught on a night out through the wheat lands. But that’s later; now, I get ready to lick off the stars. The dandelion looks at the moon. Our current president talks a bunch of humbug. You and your flowers get dressed, gossiping. Keep walking with me.

Keep walking with me, there’s this red bridge I need to show you.

It’s dawn, the red birds said. Come on, you don’t want to miss the sunny moonrise.

You look just like the world, only grand and more green than greenhouse gas emissions. I remember now the first name you said, and I remember not what came after here, and if so, would I remember then what the nightsky took? I'm pressuring you for forgiveness, pardon my parson. I just want to be able to see what I needed to see. I've already lost my eyes once.

Finally, a red of hearts I can make the most nonsense out of all the ampersands in your eyes.

And you ever notice how often when you spell a heart backwards, it makes a tree, and when it's plenty hearts, it makes a star? What do you do when it's right there and you have too many brushes to choose from?

And when is it the right time to paint in the sun, is it before your prayers?

I like you better naked. Keeps the flies and fleas away.

Me? Really, you can call me anything lucid, I like to laugh.

The sky has turned upside down. It is raining petals.

luminol and sinuous I inside the blue fire while crows smoke their cigarettes on hanging wires

Acknowledgements

“sunflower” appears in the T.ART Summer 2019 Zine

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