Dan Raphael
“I was lying in a burned out basement
with the full moon in my eyes”
Neil Young, After the Gold Rush
another moon up
eaten through the clouds
like a Jupiter of milk
a moon too large to be that far from the horizon
worldwide auditions to be the official moon of the 20’s
a moon that will never be full
always hungry, not used to these shoes,
how just enough of the sidewalk holds a grudge
holding its breath like a balloon i didn’t expect to pop
inside my refrigerator or a vein in my leg–
plumbing wiring circulation trade
systems matching salts
woe betide any ambivalence, it’s turn or stop,
been down this road more times than the road’s been me
bits of meat wobbling plates compost in reverse
a planet of gas with rock solid atmosphere
once we have enough people in orbit
where will the satellites go
once so many have turned their backs on the earth
maybe Australia will be ripped into space like the first moon was
i call, a moon answers, nothing changes
i slowly pull my hands apart and reveal
a scroll i pretend to translate
a spit so fine, ink so ready to run
since the clouds own almost all the moons
i don’t have enough light to qualify as bait,
my reflection melting into static, into amoeba clouds
that may be picking up mountains and positioning them like
multi-armed speed-chess, as we do all the simultaneous moves
needed to jump start a city with no more skeleton than a bee
venus reflected in the street, constellations
in the freshly mown field, water too small to be wet,
a planet-load of s’posed-tos, the hill i live on is now a cloud
my diet’s been deficient in mystery too long
once i leave i won’t change til i get back or somewhere,
no landmarks just construction, nothing in the sky i can trust
a confusion of rotation and perspective with one eye
above the surface & the other below i’m extrapolating
survival as another species while the developing
lobes of the world seethe and spread around me