dan raphael


I Spit on August!


between yeast and sweat,  get a rise out of
as my armpits remind me of onion, not my favorite odor
or vegetable, unless well sautéed walla walla on a primo burger
that’s not what I smell like—no butter, no sizzle, my pores 
hoarding their oil for winter til the temp’s low enough 
for my skin to glow neath a couple layers of cotton and wool

as if thinking of january quells my dread of august
which begins tomorrow, already been 6 weeks of drought
august comes in like an oven and goes out like an oven
that’s been running for a month, an impenetrable wall
keeping out rain. cool wind, and hope—hide in the basement,
find a river or lake not crowded or murky

can’t drift without a rift, i can change locations 
but not menus or preferences, no food I won’t eat 
if that’s all there is, put me in a dense forest 
and I’ll never get out, unable to climb, dig
or resist the heat leeches of 3am

i couldn’t have gotten here this quickly
a reduction in pressure and substances
the opposite of an obstacle be it grease, tailwind
or a never-discovered drive shaft, belts hidden in tendons

i had my blood drained and replaced with bio-premium
all additive and no juice, if you can pronounce it
you don’t want it inside you, avoid the anaerobic 
the light-avoiding, find the energy no one can 
switch or refocus
 


Foreground


as if the background is jittery & the subjects’ hearts stopped beating, 
a vibratory stillness like a traffic jam inside an antenna cause what is metal 
if not an urban-core traffic jam where the cars have been still so long 
we begin to remodel the interiors, add shelves and seating that converts into a bed

the mirror sees more than i do, an ambidextrous world, a ceiling of salad
we can thin and  keep growing, mutant basil hypnotizing our appetites, 
kale big enough to make clothes from—if only i could sweat 
oil and vinegar, if garlic was still legal—where you going 
with that large wooden bowl, begging for surplus pages, for consensual binding

when the story could have started yesterday or before we were born 
page 1 is always now, thinking the shirt will fit until i put it on 
and have to negotiate before i can be naked again
                                                        how i got here 
is a stain near my crotch, the safest way to ride a bicycle
is to pedal with someone else’s moccasins
 
as larger buildings compress the streets cars can no longer pass 
& freeways become so wide lane stripes are whimsy, oppression, 
whether self- or outwardly imposed

                                           you can get there from here but do you want to.
visualizing your destination makes it easier to arrive but harder to be on time. 
here’s a picture 3 years from now, horizon contaminated by a century of yeast, 
we’re teaching bread to photosynthesize, fermenting beer with beef and peanuts, 
distilling abandoned refrigerators and stacking them like wine in uncontrolled environments—
bottling is always painful, like migraine e-mails, tumor coupons, buy one get another 
through your window, maybe without breaking it, if either window or eye
could learn to zoom

                            as if what’s holding back my unifying vision of our world
is my glasses, like trying to walk through a busy mall with someone else’s prescription—
why are all the pills anti-?—since i won’t see disaster coming why bother to look, 
i was teleported but don’t know it yet, couldn’t see what i couldn’t imagine,
where i needed my bones and nerves but not skin or thirst, 
where hunger’s what we’re paid for, my palate’s subliminally trained

the natives have no word for when. 
sound here works mostly like light back home
more than i’ve ever heard through my skeleton, my mouth never closes, 
my eyes are channel in channel in every corner nuanced or grown, 
when i know i’m going straight ahead but make a circle on the still river 
i’m walking, feet loose and curious, the sky a lake 
something huge just fell upto
 


Refuse to Fit


a foul moon, foal moon. once the legs begin to unfurl 
like Avalokiteshvara’s arms, each with a different purpose, 
a different tool at the wrist—am I saluting or preparing to slice
I wave my hands so they can advise me

do I read friction or non-friction, fractional action
explicit implications, curing the illicit, the ungitimate
hairs split by rivers too murky to rise

I was raised to graze, brought up with faith
in the opposite of gravity, a heliocentrism
I only feel at noon no matter how we change the clocks
the sun won’t comply, so we obscure the air
as if to frustrate the sun doesn’t care if we layer or strip

the news sluices through my radio, my divining rod
feels war in so many directions, corporate hunger trying to 
stretch America into both oceans but they stretch back
returning our trash, half broke down half mutated & curious
sharing ulterior motives

dreaming of a world where life doesn’t have to eat
a body that can drink itself, tiny mirror-stars
in every exhalation not waiting for us to open them
disordered deliveries. out of steps but still wanting to climb
I get inside before I’m too big for the doorway
knowing there’s always an out—I’m an exitstentalist
a go-between, a come-upper-stance, stopporunity
eager to arrive, to unpack impact, corrosive roses
thoroughly thorned

would I rather have a kitten or a phone
a roof or a credit card someone else pays off
the keys to ten cars or a buffet of hallucinations and lies
I don’t cook I just add water and push buttons,
where did I leave my stomach
is this your breast or mine

a calendar made of bread doesn’t stand a chance
the dripping faucet is only correct twice a day
can whiskey sneeze, let butter shuffled the deck
the raw is wild, the 14th card can be anything it wants
who will hold onto it. letting it relax through the table and floor
into a basement we never knew we had, a wall of shelves
with smaller shelves on them, lenses behind them
not a puddle but a speaker, a wire red with speed,
the sky where I’d never suspect it
 


As an Exhibition


take me down to circumstance, mumbling with light
the joy of rolling over padded earth
floor stepping ahead of me      
                                          flavors  on alarm
brushed,  washed,  against the bias,  years in the sun
following the rain til there’s too many

><><><><

shark gambler      
                             desert heels
an island for one      
                             jigsaw city
leaves to be eaten      
                                 wheels for prowl
take away a building’s purpose
if bones were forged like I-beams, mined from graveyards
and cliffside, somewhere living meteorites survive the trip

><><><><

as if several buses emptied at once
no one’s clothes from the same store
more shoes than feet      more words than mouths
i can’t evade    can’t drink the floor or gather 
enough empty space to ease my hunger

><><><><

coming up from the soles like 20 degree fluctuations
when a circle’s not full enough or willing to join
evervescent      in the cut      dry paint almost dinner
suction for the light      not a fan turning but sunflower stalks

><><><><
 
smells like ghosts      
                             forest replaced with stairs
rain forgot the combination
someone else’s sweat on my forehead
a word to continue      
                                a gesture 3 people nod at
skin clashing with light clashing with melody
facial recognition mistaking aliens for graffiti

><><><><

time to redesign the sky      copyright clouds
if you know this face, come in
a coat that goes from dusk to dawn
from here the highways are infested threads infested with 
wearing away the distance, the spontaneous theorems      
4 fingers or 6      walls not here to support
no reconstruction      renaissance      retribution       
new to me
new to known

><><><><

from fruits to roots to the lost identity of sidewalks
when climbing through      
                                        ridge or water
sourceless road      
                          as creaks the floor to curious steps
bubbles unwrapped but short-leashed
one lung exhales while the other ins

><><><><

if I could reach that cloud of bread
a tree so dispersed it seems neither manmade nor natural
to brave the uncertain hour     
                                             randomized weather and geometry
how do i cross what’s fragmented and shifting
until legs, distant and brighter      
                                                  more corners than streets
hair i can’t recognize or trace since no pets allowed
our aromas so gregarious

><><><><

a perky surface snakes in      
                                        fashion pretends it just got here
looking back from the wall      
                                          so many flowers i can’t smell
door closing through itself      
                                        each next story set back 5 steps
deck shuffles its suits of wet paint, water soluble scaffolding
tries to rise like bread dough with all winter windows

><><><><

to release or releash
one shelled      one booted
no flight without feathers
no bees without appetite
so many earth-hands but no feet
clouds of wet planet      swirls of milky chlorophyll
not a mountain but a crowd of shoulders
approaching the horizon so gently it doesn’t run away



[written at the exhibition Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera 
  and Mexican Modernism]

dan raphael's 26th book, Out in the Wordshed, will be published around October by Last Word Press. More recent poems appear in Synchronized Chaos, S/Word, Oz Burp Eight, Nauseated Drive and Unlikely Stories.

 
 

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