Livio Farallo


                                                                     hot nudge

escape d
              o
             w
             n
             w
             a
            from throbbing clouds
             d
                    r          r          r
                      a          a         a
                         i           i          i
                           n          n         n

the unpacked ocean
                              w
                                 i
pushed by                n   ;       w     t      r     n     in gentle pins
                                d                  a     e      i     g
                               s 
                                                  h
                                                  t
                                                  w
                                                  o                sun
                                                  r                 the
the l                 g heads of jungle             to
         a           n                                drying up
            u      i
               gh

within minutes of the
escape
              r
              a
              i
              never
                o
                   t
                     i
                       c
                         e
                            d over the lime-gelatin
                               ocean
                  



                                                                                                       my green love to a fault                 

i
wait
        somewhere
        by
        stagnant river
        i swear
        is your body
        l  a  y  i  n  g
                           
                           appearing
                           sewer
                           smell new rolled grass
                                      on banks
                                     (                   lawn
                                       on levees)

i
wait….                                        f
            cold                                a
            epithets                         l
                           meant to insult

                                                    i
                                                    n
                                                    my gloved hands
instead of nicking my naked heart

you there

        scummy
        u
       and
         l
         i
         t               i
           something moving at b
                          s                   h o
                          i                    e t
                         d                       t
                         e                       o
                                                  m

half my life away



agoraphobia

four questions
and a timid elegy.
the moment too close
to touch is a priceless
distance.

and, no one near but,
the embarrassment
of letting your bladder go
is not unlike death or its lay.

when alone,
you shout
to the four winds;
is there sorrow
in your breath,
or a self-sympathy of steam?

perhaps on the prairie,
flatness is everything
and even time doesn’t run here
but catches in the dusty wind
like dripped honey.

the hands of the sky
are ticking down over night,
cracking knuckles. and
as it bends low from the trunk,
the bough of a tree is full of orange
at the widening crux of dawn

and you sit empty
beside the river.



ombrophobia

if you want the road,
the exit sign is
green and clear in every weather.

four knuckles
taut as greenland’s ice,
bland as the fogged windshield,
the vibrating door;
four knuckles of bone.

where i seem to cross shadows
they are simply puddles
and speak nothing of time.
little tick tocks
are cracks in the road.
a bluing heart
fills with ice and tries
to pump that too.

where would i be without rain?
in a mad downpour
of frozen heights and dry bones:
ashen,
affable,
mossy as stone.



noctiphobia

shadow of a breadcrust
stretched wooly in slanted sun.
                   i will crush it later
                   to pills of sleep
when it has painted the floor with night.
                   when, as much as we care, the
                   shadows of the world have bought themselves
                   a place, we are insomnia under
                   the fingers of a small match:
struck,
struck.
                   light dragged horribly across the gravel road,
                   its back broken,
                   and we are thrown off.



pnigerophobia

i wanted to view
tall seeds of you:
strict,
columnar,
incremental.
before weeds killed you.
before water rusted your iron will
and became brown as whiskey.

what is left of a species
when mating pairs must be counted?
a gene pool small
as a flooded footprint
where mosquitoes
multiply like rabbits.

you were under
no one’s thumb.
under no overhang
to look out from.
for growth, you needed
bare soil.
a drop.
a eunuch to ponder
and imagine further.
anything else
was blind overgrowth;
was a naked eye
of the sun.



eurotophobia

unconstructed shimmering
in the gutter of a hot day.

orange and green water
are pieces of a tunnel
jigsawed over the tracks,
flooding the subway.

and i came home on time
though the clock
had the wrong moment.

though this happy face
could not crack the blue
crack of unlove and

further,
waving timid hydrangeas,

let me at
the crawl of her tail:
the buttered ornaments,

the popping globes,
the rumpy dark smile
without lips
in front of me.
if only
strength
would melt off the bone,
and then,
this sweet confection
of her words are
a thick gurgling in her throat;
gutturals pleading in and out,

i close my eyes.
let the fluids run.



                                                                                                     come into my tiny arms

here                       t
i                             l
flicker                u
in a spree        a
                  to v      over
                               rivals
                                       l
                                      u
                                       r
                                       p -   lickingly
                                              the brown sliver of your tongue
                                              that maddens me
                                              with purple rage
                                                                         v
                                                                         e
                                                                         n

                                              as small
                                              as
                                              it
                                              is
                                                 and
my finger

throbs

i
cannot
hold you
                a stroke on easel
                                          l
                                             i
                                        t
                                              h
                                      e
                                        r
                                          y as a viper

            so
before     anyone
                             l
                    grabs
                            e

                    as if to clutch the 
                                        o
                                        l
                                        of 
                                        r
                                        your rainbow

i ask for your red lips

Livio Farallo is co-editor of Slipstream and Professor of Biology at Niagara County Community College. His work has appeared or, is forthcoming, in Helix, Rabid Oak, Rise Up, Synchronized Chaos, Landfill, Unlikely Stories, The Blue Collar Review, and others. His collection Dead Calls and Walk-Ins chronicles his work as a taxi driver many years ago.

 
 

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