In the Mind of a Sleeping Cat and Other Poems

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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.

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