Dan Raphael’s poetry collection Maps   Menus   Emanations will come out this June from Cyberwit.  Last year saw the publication of Moving with Every, from Flowstonre Press, and Starting Small, from Alien Buddha Press. Some more recent poems appear in Pangolin, Danse Macabre, Former People, Synchronized Chaos and Ginosko. Most Wednesdays Dan writes and records a current events poem for The KBOO
Evening News.

Light is Instant; Heat Takes a While

Start the year wet, end the year in a week
24 hours to knit a pair of socks
1 minute to get too drunk to drive
in labor for 40 hours, dead in 10 seconds

Connecting the dots of clouds to discern my future
soaking in a tub of entrails
some calendars won’t start til they’re ready
some shadows appear in a blank landscape
days there’s no sun just the milky glass lampshade of sky

Today’s the 59th of November, the 364th of the year
a spool of days, a tonal drone, distance measured by
how long it takes to travel it, motors denied fuel, 
sails with conditions before they open
the anger of obstructed wind
when clouds can’t hold it any longer

The rain will either pass through or take me with
maybe the sun creates clouds to get some privacy
some time for its other interests  
we’re unaware of  our own internal climate and topography
the agribusiness of a fast food stomach
bodies that are subsidiaries of big pharma

Dinner time, bed time, 6 hours of screen time
if the sky’s not threatening it’s ignoring me, 
when no wind can be found my body has 
nothing to lean into so can fall
                  I can count on gravity
teaching me to swim down the sidewalk, climbing ashore 
drenched in friction and left-behinds, my dead skin 
tithed to allergies and yearning, dieting from the outside, 
not working out but working in, letting muscles choose 
their joints and tendons, letting my blood try different recipes

If i can’t travel i can eat like i’m two continents away
like i could tell from a bite of fish what river/sea it’s from
what it felt totally stripped of water, rising in free fall
like climbing kilauea from its ocean roots to its cloud canopy

Some places you never get back from
some places you pass through without evidence
for a couple weeks, symptoms like a new accent
or a hankering for something the stores never had before
flash frozen, teleported, amended before reconstituted,
all that stored energy puts me into paralyzed overdrive, 
necessary molting, crawl around the house trying to catch 
scent of my mind, find where tomorrow keeps getting in

Open One Door, What Does the Next One Say

so much going, not going,, staying, not staying
all around me seems expanding without stretching
maybe just clearer, or thinner or

this spherical world I don’t have enough eyes for
only two legs and one body for just one direction at a time
if i spin, somersault, fly like a cinematic ninja

continuous ventilation, not breath
some wind power, moon-magnifier,
solar from the inside out
enough scattered bits of me looking in unseen directions
so I can step through, step into, as if newton’s 11th law
the conservation of individuals, only one dan per pocket

I know I want, can’t catch or name, will know it when I and 
when I can’t, between two espressos and  grain from on and off 
the evolutionary ladder, from undersea to prairies and mountain tops,
an axis of altitude crossing an axis of irregular time, fits and starts and doesn’t fit

one breath surrounding another, hands receiving,
ears sending out a sensory array, 
when I don’t want to be smelling bread
when someone I haven’t seen yet turns on the lights
and the garbage disposal I never had but whose kitchen is it

I keep thinking of things to do but don’t know how
or can’t get there or forget what it was when the
next possibility appears, like a matchbook that sprouts quick replacements
not friction just intent, with gloves on my feet and shoes on my hands
what about these flippers, like trying to escape from inside a pinball machine

some thing I’ll hear walking by, two words becoming a couplet
I could get sued for, like a burning haiku in a crowded theater
clouds rising from the earth not smoke, a restorative heat
an end of season sale on oxygen,   copper zinc & magnesium feathers 
sparking in acidic rain

my neighborhood’s been rezoned a migratory flyway so I’ll be leaving soon
I sense I’ll know where to go, when a wind from the 5th direction,
when something in the air more pollen than spice
with delivery comes consumption, most eating is finite
when the air’s this wet who needs to drink

Bearings

suddenly sepia, watching myself
so many feet in this crowd—which are mine

camera catches car, everyone gets out
and the car keeps going

clearcut 20 years ago and nothing’s changed

if my neck is a chimney 
is my head smoke or a stork’s nest

mind wiped by weeks of rain
i doubt the existence of stars

rising from my fetal curl cause this is my stop

a parking garage with more birds in it than cars

after dinner all the lights and walls go away