In the Mind of a Sleeping Cat
There was no god to begin with:
only a small spectral entity lumbering up a tree.
Not ennui, not cosmic meta-physicality
swinging on and on and so forth
in the self or its awareness of person. What is
existence but the I am, what is the I am
except for living. Tiny metaphors
in the mind. We’re all dreams –
or something like that. Just a specter
a re-imagining to forage on our own.
The human machine in meta-notion: a body,
a system, an organ, a tissue, a cell, a molecule and then
an atom held by gravity.
You do not exist I am,
you are already being:
I am
You are already being,
You do not exist:
an atom held by gravity:
a system, an organ, a tissue, a cell, a molecule and then
the human machine in meta-notion: a body,
re-imagining to forage on our own
or something like that just a specter
in the mind. We’re all dreams –
swinging on and on and so forth.
Except for living tiny metaphors in
existence, but the I am. What is the I am
in the self or its awareness of person? What is
swinging on and on and so forth?
Not ennui, not cosmic meta-physicality
only a small spectral entity lumbering up a tree.
There was no god to begin with.
Pomegranates, Early November
I want to be a cat. I want to be
the snowfall in Jersey after
a hurricane’s ruined feat. Know
this poem follows a template: where
I take your words and stuff them
in my mouth. Here I grow hungry
and walk short distances
in the San Francisco rain, cupping my hands
telling the world that this is the only way
to hold rain. To view the poem through City Lights,
wondering why I’m never used to reading
at daylight. I think about the future,
no deja voodoo that no one can
out do. I am at the store now buying
live fruit: opening it with a dull knife, watching
its seeds spill. Here: take your words,
take the seeds I spat –
make a tree the cat can sleep on.
Deadweight Parade
Our story: the accident.
Noise parachuting through data-lines
— inevitable satellite, zooming
past space: tracing us. Google
maps tells where a thing is, but
with no tie. Quiet list,
empty page
newly bought, never used.
This is the accident: our story.
Quiet page, empty list
with only one entry saying,
I want you more than parachutes
or I need you more than want
and its first vision. From memory
in the sway of encounter: the word
deadweight; an accident,
this story remembers: something slain
isn’t any dead.
Quiet Earth
Lover of sight, the shadows are dimming
in this room: yearning little rays stumble
and murmur through as the blinds close
and turn in for the day. Holding on to
what never knew was scene. Until it begins,
the whisper of dusk, the titter comfort,
a moon against structure. Casting no outline
here – no wanting little waves that lurch.
Merely a whisper, on the thud to hold
us close: to learn what it means to set
in distance while holding your pass.
Formula for a Beautiful Poem
There must always be some form of sadness,
a realization, a yearning for some place to live
in. There is always the self: the inevitable I
or you whom it constantly blames.
Why is it that the most equally trusted poem
needs explanation? Why is there a motion
to pepper the simplest fact or
to guise sentimentality as an equal
denial of truth to affirm, yes,
affirm a necessity in silence.
How is beauty irrelevant when
all we ever write about wants
to be beautiful? How is meaning important
when the poem forgets its sleep
while you wake up repeating
the same day
all over again –
Requisite Desire
Taciturn: to weave
and exhale quietly.
Wave after wave
after wave –
how reticent is coy
as if to blow
on the flat ocean
to see it quiver.
Quails tweet quaint
when stuffed
or placed in ramekins,
in the middle of bunt pans,
inside the mouth: how
we use teeth to chew,
to quail, to know
what fire is – blow,
blow what burns you,
quail when safe;
everything turns cold when it wants warmth.
—
Dominique Santos finished a degree in Literature and is pursuing her graduate studies in Creative Writing.
