dan raphael
Supple Brine
electricity conceals so much landing face down,
holographically nourishing incoherence, leaking acid ive never tasted
as if a private bird wing with an eye evaporates carbon
weighing tagging released like infrastructure
uncertain as to north and open
like a bowtie a garrote e over c
holding a vapors shadow to bridge
before the match is struck without rasp or sulfur
every fermentation a new claim
if you find an edge go over it with a question in our breath,
an inflatable parasite inspires with pocket weight
the deer in my peripheral, a jingle the triple panes cant suppress
toaster invasion like blood from a personal sun
this chairs for the wandering crystal,
rearranging the columns of our hibernating table-room—
turn the knob til something blossoms, arguing about neutrality and random pavement
i keep the coin flipping for several minutes, a large but light coin
wind from the wall sized tv—all the windows were healed before we moved in
2 clouds in the morning and 2 before bed
exhaling vanilla as I rise at the moon’s speed
since im lost im anywhere, over my shoulder or between my knees
as if im crowded alone or tight packed kippers—
if we roll over at once radiating oil, salt & hesitation
as I clean before I exit in an oven or a rolling steel eyelid
a flood of fluttering to incandesce at the off-gassing corner
eating with knitting needles, carving clothes from unfolded newsprint,
a graceful chaos, a somatic valley where 51 ponds awake:
rippling howls of earths feral brine
White as Day
if the river doesn’t make it to the sea, if the mountains begin to inhale,
i wonder what eons of pressure have done to the juvenile forests so deep in me,
my personal dinosaurs wiped out when high school collided with my planet,
infernal combustion, how many stars gone from the skies of our nativities,
approaching the resolution of day clearer than the perfect vision we may have been born with, clear as rain with shimmering micro-windows of would-be fish, a slice of life
spread across the 5th dimension of duration, every venture means sending out
involuntary probes glistening in re-entry to the world beyond my body
what i know of most people i know is one tip of the tip of their iceberg
in this ocean of so many doors & niches, walls changing proportions—
what came first the roof or the forest canopy, since canoes don’t work on asphalt
we needed another way, like radio-controlled dogs.
if i connect the dots of the blueberries the robins have stolen i’ll have a path to bird mind,
feathers to ruffle, beaks to make kissing no fun. to fly is to fade into the air
among its manifestations of clouds, walls, tunnels not of our physics,
when you smell chocolate turn left, harmonizing with all the ring-tones
migrating through the impeccable sky
The Thing, Not Whats Around It
hum stone bridge release,
every directions up or down,
geese taller than trees, river faster than bicycles.
the moon in so many pieces it could be a city 40 miles away
eating what I’m thinking about.
how the bridge reached into my pocket so invisibly,
how a square mouthed ferry coming to get my car and its new friends
five kinds of sea birds on a twisting pier even dogs cant walk
time birds frigate birds micro gulls black footed rumor catchers
*<><>*
the sun changes its broadcast frequency every couple miles
don’t know who has the biggest mouths—chimneys, cedars, squirrels
I have a neighbor I never see at home but often in other cities
owning something from each of the last 100 years
teeth like cathedral doors
aligning the white mountain with the abandoned hospital
*<><>*
driving around the malls perimeter as if it were a global tiara, a multi-screen pastiche
of incomplete movie sets, defining a culture by its deep fryer, whats put on & in their burgers
with every spoonful of soup is an artifact or opening line I may or may not have lived through
take my hand from my pocket and find an excavation begun:
before the trees grew here, before the stream got so high it couldn’t flow
focus like a rectangle whose corners umbrella with tendrilled ribs
freezing the moment as a perfect black & white print where nothings black or white
ashine with spongy depth, moist resonance, how going in that building I’d be someone else,
driving that car, I can tell by my shoes & pant cuffs
inhabiting my friends eyes I see what a different birthplace would have made me
*<><>*
draped in cats, exhaling unpainted timber.
keep laying cards down til a 5th suit, a whole number tween ten and eleven
don’t go up the steps but around them
all the water slides honoring anatomical features
the white of the tiger, lenses in the rain
next morning I exit a boat I never got on & follow a decades path
yoyo consciousness, spinning against so much
when just enough stars fell for me to connect the face and the window
a costume party where 23 people in mottled gray sheets align as stonehenge
Getting Away from it All
Scanning the large hotels in the mouth of syrupy purple waves
crest whip-cracks and smoky sparkles the crustacean wind scuttles side-saw
mucking through exhalations, surrenders and maybe next weeks;
everyone else gone to The Moment, to Gallery Wow, to Alcohol River.
I turn off the light but its not done with its movie, the photonic origami
of a billion mutable sheets in suspension with clocks about to flip over so many cards,
call so many numbers everyone dives for the prize table, colliding like rivers of used fry oil,
some cooler than others, some so old their carbon has a gallery.
a diamond tight handshake leaves my bones mind-wiped,
where calcium is a distant gassy planet, hundreds of captured comets
so stoned with time and momentum loss, their liberated tails chasing themselves
like donut frosting flowing through the holes in our pasture where cows exploded into homes,
where trees disassembled into golf courses like a hundred acres of poodles
You have to see the forest from halfway up and all round to open enough mouths
to fuel enough eyes to send forth like hummingbirds weave their inelastic threads
first to still us then to lock us within our chemistries.
Air ships rake carbon from the sky and freeze it into walls so locked in security.
more demonstrations from those fearing solar panels will suck the sun’s life
not worrying about how sucking so much oil and gas could collapse the earth
like a jenga soufflé. How removing my stomach to be slimmer
collapses my bodys infrastructure, freeways merging into playgrounds,
step from the train into an assembly line of self-directed machinery,
eating without breathing, tended like ant queens without pheromones or words
Does it matter what color i am coming out of the chrysalis,
or continuing to change/refract/ modify from the inside, the color of my credit.
my velocity makes folks colorblind, blending like strawberries in 40 weight,
like a rain of egg yolks on 100 degree pavement cordoned off
for the national marathon of part-time uniforms shuffling jurisdictions, code books,
i don’t know who dispatches the flying camera cats, scent-marking the suspicious
for only the guilty have allergies, only those born where the factories evaporated,
letting the fast foodery choose what you eat saves you 25%
Every Sunday the dead skin cells and sweat residue are sucked from my bed
and sold to pay my health care, diagnoses extra, prescriptions on the derivative market.
rub this swab around your cheek and we’ll reveal your genetic lottery numbers:.
you can win a trip to space or 7-10 in prison.
call 911 & you’re agreeing to show us everything—avoid emergencies.
every password must be different.
steal a debit card and exhaust it.
dan raphael’s life started changing as 2015 began, then a month of artistic seclusion. Current poems appear in Phantom Drift, Caliban, E∙ratio, Great Weather for Media, and Indefinite Space.
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Supple Brine
electricity conceals so much landing face down,
holographically nourishing incoherence, leaking acid ive never tasted
as if a private bird wing with an eye evaporates carbon
weighing tagging released like infrastructure
uncertain as to north and open
like a bowtie a garrote e over c
holding a vapors shadow to bridge
before the match is struck without rasp or sulfur
every fermentation a new claim
if you find an edge go over it with a question in our breath,
an inflatable parasite inspires with pocket weight
the deer in my peripheral, a jingle the triple panes cant suppress
toaster invasion like blood from a personal sun
this chairs for the wandering crystal,
rearranging the columns of our hibernating table-room—
turn the knob til something blossoms, arguing about neutrality and random pavement
i keep the coin flipping for several minutes, a large but light coin
wind from the wall sized tv—all the windows were healed before we moved in
2 clouds in the morning and 2 before bed
exhaling vanilla as I rise at the moon’s speed
since im lost im anywhere, over my shoulder or between my knees
as if im crowded alone or tight packed kippers—
if we roll over at once radiating oil, salt & hesitation
as I clean before I exit in an oven or a rolling steel eyelid
a flood of fluttering to incandesce at the off-gassing corner
eating with knitting needles, carving clothes from unfolded newsprint,
a graceful chaos, a somatic valley where 51 ponds awake:
rippling howls of earths feral brine
White as Day
if the river doesn’t make it to the sea, if the mountains begin to inhale,
i wonder what eons of pressure have done to the juvenile forests so deep in me,
my personal dinosaurs wiped out when high school collided with my planet,
infernal combustion, how many stars gone from the skies of our nativities,
approaching the resolution of day clearer than the perfect vision we may have been born with, clear as rain with shimmering micro-windows of would-be fish, a slice of life
spread across the 5th dimension of duration, every venture means sending out
involuntary probes glistening in re-entry to the world beyond my body
what i know of most people i know is one tip of the tip of their iceberg
in this ocean of so many doors & niches, walls changing proportions—
what came first the roof or the forest canopy, since canoes don’t work on asphalt
we needed another way, like radio-controlled dogs.
if i connect the dots of the blueberries the robins have stolen i’ll have a path to bird mind,
feathers to ruffle, beaks to make kissing no fun. to fly is to fade into the air
among its manifestations of clouds, walls, tunnels not of our physics,
when you smell chocolate turn left, harmonizing with all the ring-tones
migrating through the impeccable sky
The Thing, Not Whats Around It
hum stone bridge release,
every directions up or down,
geese taller than trees, river faster than bicycles.
the moon in so many pieces it could be a city 40 miles away
eating what I’m thinking about.
how the bridge reached into my pocket so invisibly,
how a square mouthed ferry coming to get my car and its new friends
five kinds of sea birds on a twisting pier even dogs cant walk
time birds frigate birds micro gulls black footed rumor catchers
*<><>*
the sun changes its broadcast frequency every couple miles
don’t know who has the biggest mouths—chimneys, cedars, squirrels
I have a neighbor I never see at home but often in other cities
owning something from each of the last 100 years
teeth like cathedral doors
aligning the white mountain with the abandoned hospital
*<><>*
driving around the malls perimeter as if it were a global tiara, a multi-screen pastiche
of incomplete movie sets, defining a culture by its deep fryer, whats put on & in their burgers
with every spoonful of soup is an artifact or opening line I may or may not have lived through
take my hand from my pocket and find an excavation begun:
before the trees grew here, before the stream got so high it couldn’t flow
focus like a rectangle whose corners umbrella with tendrilled ribs
freezing the moment as a perfect black & white print where nothings black or white
ashine with spongy depth, moist resonance, how going in that building I’d be someone else,
driving that car, I can tell by my shoes & pant cuffs
inhabiting my friends eyes I see what a different birthplace would have made me
*<><>*
draped in cats, exhaling unpainted timber.
keep laying cards down til a 5th suit, a whole number tween ten and eleven
don’t go up the steps but around them
all the water slides honoring anatomical features
the white of the tiger, lenses in the rain
next morning I exit a boat I never got on & follow a decades path
yoyo consciousness, spinning against so much
when just enough stars fell for me to connect the face and the window
a costume party where 23 people in mottled gray sheets align as stonehenge
Getting Away from it All
Scanning the large hotels in the mouth of syrupy purple waves
crest whip-cracks and smoky sparkles the crustacean wind scuttles side-saw
mucking through exhalations, surrenders and maybe next weeks;
everyone else gone to The Moment, to Gallery Wow, to Alcohol River.
I turn off the light but its not done with its movie, the photonic origami
of a billion mutable sheets in suspension with clocks about to flip over so many cards,
call so many numbers everyone dives for the prize table, colliding like rivers of used fry oil,
some cooler than others, some so old their carbon has a gallery.
a diamond tight handshake leaves my bones mind-wiped,
where calcium is a distant gassy planet, hundreds of captured comets
so stoned with time and momentum loss, their liberated tails chasing themselves
like donut frosting flowing through the holes in our pasture where cows exploded into homes,
where trees disassembled into golf courses like a hundred acres of poodles
You have to see the forest from halfway up and all round to open enough mouths
to fuel enough eyes to send forth like hummingbirds weave their inelastic threads
first to still us then to lock us within our chemistries.
Air ships rake carbon from the sky and freeze it into walls so locked in security.
more demonstrations from those fearing solar panels will suck the sun’s life
not worrying about how sucking so much oil and gas could collapse the earth
like a jenga soufflé. How removing my stomach to be slimmer
collapses my bodys infrastructure, freeways merging into playgrounds,
step from the train into an assembly line of self-directed machinery,
eating without breathing, tended like ant queens without pheromones or words
Does it matter what color i am coming out of the chrysalis,
or continuing to change/refract/ modify from the inside, the color of my credit.
my velocity makes folks colorblind, blending like strawberries in 40 weight,
like a rain of egg yolks on 100 degree pavement cordoned off
for the national marathon of part-time uniforms shuffling jurisdictions, code books,
i don’t know who dispatches the flying camera cats, scent-marking the suspicious
for only the guilty have allergies, only those born where the factories evaporated,
letting the fast foodery choose what you eat saves you 25%
Every Sunday the dead skin cells and sweat residue are sucked from my bed
and sold to pay my health care, diagnoses extra, prescriptions on the derivative market.
rub this swab around your cheek and we’ll reveal your genetic lottery numbers:.
you can win a trip to space or 7-10 in prison.
call 911 & you’re agreeing to show us everything—avoid emergencies.
every password must be different.
steal a debit card and exhaust it.
dan raphael’s life started changing as 2015 began, then a month of artistic seclusion. Current poems appear in Phantom Drift, Caliban, E∙ratio, Great Weather for Media, and Indefinite Space.
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