[Everywhere around the fountains, birds]
Everywhere around the fountains, birds—
Tender watchers of human dramas—unfold
Themselves in percussive waves, a sound
Like a thousand newspapers crumpling.
Let that sound and their bursts of life unravel
Human time into skeins of bright yarn to guide
Us through the maze of some gray architect’s
Dream of granite, grimy modernity. Woe!
To the killer of birds whose robbery deafens us
One and all to music, blinds us to the fluid
Movement of mercy in the start and eyes,
To the frank gaze of a creature without guile.
In its death, the planet shudders in a paroxysm
Of loss, mourning the blood-tipped feathers
As only a mother knows how—silent, screaming
Age-stiffened fingers arranged like talons:
An elm branch weighted with snow, a gash
Of sudden moonlight on the mountains,
The indulgent blue certitude in the bird’s
Sphere, the orbit and migration our bodies
Make despite the metallic, murderous clang
Forever drowning out the natal sound
We yearn to relearn and hear, blood
Drumming the genetic code in our ears.
In Bocca Al Lupo
I envy you crescent moon
With your dark parts neatly
Hidden beneath the gauze
Of a flimsy housedress.
Old woman, your kerchief
Drawn over black curls gone
White—you are all Italian,
Sicilian or Neapolitan in
Your dark, impudent gaze,
Your color changing with your
Moods and the attentions
Of the sun. I envy you
And your movement, your
Orbit, constant and distance
A face always there but mostly
Ignored, until some lover
Or murderer calls upon you
For guidance or surrender–
A lunatic to ask for help from
A spinning rock, but just look
At your effect on the tides,
The waves, the waters pulling
And pushing us, first towards
Then away from the dream,
The death that you’ve prepared
For us. Symbol of sleep, of sex,
Of hidden, sinful lusts, of madness
Mercy, charity, the hope for something
Larger than us, which encircles us
As we encircle it in layers of needs
And desires we peel back each night
Between the sheets, our hair
Entangled on the pillows, our sour
Breaths as simple and solid as
Timepieces fashioned for the wrists
Of gods. We have no weapons
With which to fend you off, the sleep
Seducing us to dream, to wish,
To sigh, to hope, fulfilled or not,
With the lot we’ve drawn.
Thinking About Petrarch’s Laura
Each word spoken by lovers
Everywhere is a variation
On the same theme. There are
No virgin words the world over—
Each line of a letter, each muffled
Sigh or moan is as if predestined
By the gods of love. The heart
Has no secret, no free will of its own.
It repeats, though it beats in new
Chests, the prayers and pleas
Of ten thousand years, refined like ore,
Honed like steel by the ages of lovers
Birthed, dead, and reborn awaking
To the blood, seeing a symmetrical face,
A dark look, a hand’s caress, and saying,
Despite anything, I choose you.
Debt
To decode money’s mute alphabet—
Sighs and signs—
Believe in death and its nature
As separate or community,
Encumbrance of flesh on the soul.
Take the tongue’s inventory,
A true and accurate accounting
Of our market value, what
Has come to knowledge naked
And prostrate before the appraising
Gods. What is language? Gold
Thread, invisibly spun into the tapestry
Of sky, of dirt. Come unto money
As an acolyte—attachment
And matrimony. Tarnished thread
Of alphabet, cipher, code—
Translate the morning into quantifiable
Bullion, the dawn into paper
Currency, the bird song into coinage.
To live is credit, each hour
A debit balanced against destiny’s pen
In red or black, each second
A columned mark against existence.
Don’t Die for Wall Street
Snow pelts us like songs
From the distant past, a dirty
Gauze covering old wounds.
When will we lift our eyes
And our voices in a great static
Murmur of humanity.
One by one they call us into
Boardrooms to confirm their existence
And necessity, to convince us
Of the efficacy of their cures
And theorems, tried and tested
On the unreal bodies of the masses.
When will we lift our eyes
And weapons towards the necessary
Blue of reality. Winter of tombs,
Spring of struggle. A brass key
In the pocket of the people. A raw
Row of incandescent lovers, workers,
Mothers, children advancing
In the breath of purple morning. Cry
Out in anger, in pain, in the fading
Numbness, the nerves exposed
By the struggle, the fluid movement
Of limbs and garments, in the finality
Of forever, goodwill floating like
Pollen in the stilled air of eternal
Human bodies, embraces.
Nick DePascal lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico with his wife and son where he teaches English. His first book, Before You Become Improbable, was published by West End Press. His poems have appeared online and in-print in many fine journals, such as Narrative, Prairie Schooner, Superstition Review, TAB, The Los Angeles Review, Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, Vinyl, and more.
OVUNQUE SIAMO 