Three poems by J. David

On defiance, as a verb

All matter emits black body radiation on
becoming thermal cavity at equilibrium

with the void. There is ritual in the cleansing
molten of burnish and shine, each turn of sheet

slow-suckling at the fever. Said the smith
to the fire pressing its mouth along his palms:

when mercy came for us it found us not
at the first coming. Not until this helix

our mother and father built for us emerged
from the wet mouth of hell did we entertain

any alchemy of self. These dark bodies humming
invisible radiation, we built ourselves into shimmer

red and shades of yellow jazz the way two suns smelt
hydrogen to gold as they misfortunate together,

shaking gold dust and ashes into the wide expanse
of whatever is awake with the possibility of pulchritude.

The smith dips his fingers slowly into the magnetism
of the forge before running from the crucible,

a golden fist lifted into the cool gleam of night.
Reckless celebration of survival.

 

Reasons to go on

For Zackary Lavoie

someday you will be loved like the
lonely bear loves the moon but not
just loves it he sings to it calls it
lovely names it after a lost cause he
has kept close but kept in his
pocket to look at when it rains but
not just rains when the sky is clear
he telescopes it like a looking glass
with his paws and sighs see
someday your poems will save one
of us
and someday it will be you

 

Many Voices

Each month it was another pill and another therapist and another group. My lover left and the
hallucinations returned. I thought a lot about how acutely we feel love as distance and the space
inside grew larger and larger until the lithium came. There were so many times I surrendered
my life. The many voices came. I was lost. I was found. I was lost.