Gibson - Little glass planet: poems

DOBBY GIBSON Graywolf Press Copyright 2019 by Dobby Gibson The author and Graywolf Press have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the authors copyright, please notify Graywolf Press at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy. This publication is made possible, in part, by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund. Significant support has also been provided by Target, the McKnight Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, the Amazon Literary Partnership, and other generous contributions from foundations, corporations, and individuals.

To these organizations and individuals we offer our heartfelt thanks. Published by Graywolf Press 250 Third Avenue North, Suite 600 Minneapolis, Minnesota 55401 All rights reserved. www.graywolfpress.org Published in the United States of America ISBN 978-1-55597-842-6 Ebook ISBN 978-1-55597-889-1 2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1 First Graywolf Printing, 2019 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018958150 Cover design: Jeenee Lee Design Cover art: Yuji Agematsu. Zip: 01.01.14 12.31.14 (details). Mixed media in cigarette pack cellophane wrappers (365 units). On wood-backed acrylic shelves, latex paint (12 units).

Wrappers, each approx.: 2 x 2 x 1 inches (6.3 x 5.3 x 2.5 cm). Courtesy of the artist, Yale Union, Portland, and Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York. Photo: Aaron Flint Jamison and Scott Ponik.

Note to the Reader on Text Size Poem Whispered While Being Blown into Molten Glass, Then Shattered We recommend that you adjust your device settings so that all of the above text fits on one line; this will ensure that the lines match the authors intent. If you view the text at a larger than optimal type size, some line breaks will be inserted by the device. Though weve done this many times before it doesnt make it any less miraculous that a fugitive intimacy can sequester itself in the nearly invisible here dissolving an entire alphabet into thoughts strung from more distant thoughts like stars inside a strange machine that counts on you to propel it with a joule of your minds breath pushing young ships into the harbor where they ferry the very idea that music needs no mediation tacking this way and then that as if each to earn the name we moments ago christened them with INTUITION LAYAWAY LAST HOPE new fleets drifting off as older ones threaten return across soft borders some smuggling some gone long enough to reappear as unrecognizable as paint swatches read differently in the sun another among the infinite things that blue-green never names but still colors wildly in the spell that watches over you as you lie awake a little longer wondering what happens to the hours Brazen angels, stubborn saboteurs send us a sign. Though weve done this many times before it doesnt make it any less miraculous that a fugitive intimacy can sequester itself in the nearly invisible here dissolving an entire alphabet into thoughts strung from more distant thoughts like stars inside a strange machine that counts on you to propel it with a joule of your minds breath pushing young ships into the harbor where they ferry the very idea that music needs no mediation tacking this way and then that as if each to earn the name we moments ago christened them with INTUITION LAYAWAY LAST HOPE new fleets drifting off as older ones threaten return across soft borders some smuggling some gone long enough to reappear as unrecognizable as paint swatches read differently in the sun another among the infinite things that blue-green never names but still colors wildly in the spell that watches over you as you lie awake a little longer wondering what happens to the hours Brazen angels, stubborn saboteurs send us a sign.

Silent priests of the coat check, cherubs of every appetite, all the powers of ten, if we can believe in you, we can believe again. Assure us well be spared. Tell us its been you ghostwriting our astonishing memoirs all along. Loyal docents, restless spirits of lost chess-masters, dogs with one eye, lead us home. Spray-paint the orange X on our doors and place the warm coin into our hands. Promise it wont end in any of the ways we think it will.

Pile snow onto the capitol and fossilize the partisans. Stuff sawdust into the senators crooked mouths and announce the lies have all been told. Spoon the cure onto every cracked tongue then kiss the food right down our throats. Afternoon breeze of one syllable, arsonists with no matches, stab wounds healing into smiles, taxis at midnight, shine on. Shine your penlights into the backs of our eyes and swear you see no blindness. Whisper the forgotten melody into our ears.

Show the skywriters how to spell without looking back, weve been fools, weve wasted more than weve saved, we can be loved after all.

The most horrible person has been elected president. The hardest thing to fathom is the present. Familiar sounds arrive at my door from the school down the street. The kid with the freshest haircut holds a rubber football while hosting a Chautauqua on defensive pass interference. Seven students stand at the back of the orchestra, stoned with percussion.

For the thirty-third time in her life a science teacher announces the oldest layer of rock is called Precambrian. Theyve trained us to believe anything. So is the rumor true? Yes, Abe Vigoda has died. That name, like something resurrected from a dictionary. Abe : another word for honesty. And vigoda , meaning: a sacred temple for vampires.

About the past I never feel the same way twice. When I was sick and my father somewhere across the planet, a Trinitron television wheeled into my bedroom dispensed the medicine of Abe Vigoda by slow drip. I could hear the ice thunder as it calved in the pond across the street. Like a superhero with the powers of an exhausted mime, Abe Vigoda cured my fear of ghosts while teaching me how to wear the suit of adulthood the right amount reluctantly, and holster my revolver behind my back where I can never reach it. My father is again far from me, visiting the clinic where they treat idiopathic positional vertigo by reorienting the crystals of the inner ear, which once helped him toss exceptional spirals timed perfectly so that as I caught or not the football I crashed into arbor vitae that was the closest thing I had to a brother pummeling wisdom into me. The past is surprisingly punctual.

All of time is with us here, each next moment waiting right where we left it when we last felt safe inside our heads wondering what kind of leathery faces they might grow into as we held the flashlight beneath our chins to say the one funny thing we needed to while leaning into the dark.

The best thing about riding a horse is the better shadow you make. The best part of the better shadow is knowing only half of what its thinking. Even doing nothing is a form of moving on. Through the white pines the horses walk single file, in a sentence, each rider another noun aspiring to the verb to be. The forest has no replica.

Its beasts disprove everything. At dusk, your worries are a sack of rabbits you have to carry down to the river and press slowly beneath the surface until you feel it go still. In the morning, when you wake, youll think you stitched the valley back together by opening your eyes.