dan raphael


Navigating the Multi-verse


I’ve said that once I’ve driven somewhere I could always
get there again but when you go somewhere that’s many wheres,
when past and future the same coin but of what realm,
no heads or tails just legs and wings, fins and mouth
flow adapting to  e-gress and in-, a river sailing me,
cloud divided among dozens of alveoli, horizons floating 
and fading in every direction, watercolor cartography,
deserts as deep as oceans, mountain barely big enough to trip over

technology from 3 million years ago that’s still functional
still changing, sometimes temperature polkas, sometimes sound 
retreating to my left arriving at my right, scattered while sequential
as my talents are a mix of sewer, railroad and vending machine
liquid pouring without cup or drain, sealed objects
that won’t let us pass until we pick them up 
and then become too fidgety to handle, try to
race ahead of us, scattering in several directions

rubik’s dice: changing numbers of sides & values
as spun, as resisting, more symbols than numbers
in an alphabet I’ve never learned, from a race  with more 
or fewer fingers, where counting is prayer
where gambling is conversation, as what moves to the center 
gets broken apart & recombined, as the dice can change 
what’s holding them, as a ball may awake mid-flight
may fall out of or change momentum

that’s the way the earth bounces, no sky in my pie,
a compass too polite to point, the first word in direction
is dire, when I see myself somewhere else
my only choices are escape or be invisible
walking into sleeves, rising onto wheels
no door to close and just one pedal
 


Leaving in the Left Out
		(for/from casey bush)


stepping in from 20-30 years ago
is this a fork or an antenna
a feathered lime, digital soup
a fresh tsunami of skin

tomorrow’s on back order
still the jar won’t let go
convulsive bongos curling cabbage

liberated knees, elbow suction
gasping for inattention
salt-free antidepressants

mythology on ten dollars a day
buttered with dharma & sage
compass rose’s thorns
gravitational bearnaise

when the ears lay their eggs
the white bedspread of night
equatorial pockets of inequality 
a fistful of breadcrumbs
in the cloud cap or the tidal larder

do I dress like a sandwich
or put pants on my cucumbers
gently coddling the eager cedars
crochet needle marks instead of bar codes

they kept dialing my social security number
and getting instant discounts
mistaking chain mail for a chain letter
when my legs are cold I put on another sweater

hair seldom does that now
 


Between Go and Stop


between go and stop
among yield and take my chances
if the door won’t open make a new one
or wait for someone to come in
       as two windows become a jacket 
or how many crows does it take
      to lift a car or drive a bus

who’s telling this story
smoke cutting through lights
when the moon and sun rise together they want their privacy
I’m flying over a town where everyone has a light on their head
where do they go when it rains

the air gets so clear nothing is covered
not seeing into but along a time line
depends on the compass clock, the distributing register
given out before they’re all assembled or counted 
a place in every floor something could fall through 
if it was small enough, in the right place at a spinning angle
what if it doesn’t stop and my hand won’t let go

if our veins were as thin as electric wires
if my brain could only move muscles remotely
how do my eyes fit in, do they have to be here
I’m sleek as an otter on the downhill run off a mountain of wet grass
a river just muscular enough, more translucent than necessary
inches above its banks but not running over
a wave trying to talk while its tongue’s breakering
so much ground down, almost ready to sprout
once the air and sunlight decide territories and hungers

not slack but slow to shift, 
not opportunity but unexpected justice
more than fair, imagination can ask for all it wants
but only get what I hadn’t thought of
learning the easy things last, the bubble in the level
never stays still for me, my shoes want to untie
unbutton one button two more show up
a couple hundred hands making a zipper down the street
coz there’s a river underneath who’s served its time
and may not remember how to flow

I smell rivers before I see them, or my saliva starts to build
the horizon of wet potential color, fresh but murky
industrialized but redeemable, a river needing our skin
someone should tell the birds where the delta went, how the clouds 
rose as hard as they could, some escaping in a way I can’t understand

rain that neither evaporates or reaches the earth
more inflection than clarity, as if the message
goes through an egg beater before reaching me

pour this in an out of the way corner, let my lamp burn low
it’s the kind of night day will never understand
as if a bed would appear in the woods and I’d be sleepy at noon
so many suns and such silence you can almost hear inside my head
almost hear the dome growing from the air’s porous belly

neither wind nor transportation, neither menu or atlas   
a diagram where connecting lines can be moved around
unlabeled boxes with secret exits
hungry enough to eat what’s not here yet
I can draw it in the air so it’s thick before rush hour
then need both hands to get away or back to a fresh start
in unfamiliar territory, deceptively reminiscent

in hand, out of hand, after consideration
lay it open, slowly bubbling, as minutes add up to motion, 
stillness never subtracts, this window responds inconsistently
unsure if it’s a door or companion, what I’m talking to
on the other side of transparency
treading air with webbed hands
siphoning off some oxygen and mystery for later

In the Wordshed, dan raphael's 26th book, was published last december by Last Word Press. Most wednesdays dan writes and records a current events poem for The KBOO Evening News.

 
 

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