Pieces No. 6, paper collage, 2022
in the present tense an insomnia full of streets a sunrise that grows larger i saw the same face in a parking lot a ladybug, a flower, and a dream our souls dress in old clothes and float through the cracks in a rented mango tree in a lamp full of dark caresses and transparent butterflies, your body takes shape steals the void between my eyes makes love of empty grass a moth full of paper clippings the warm sound of foliage in the corners of your knees this distance needs reckoning with a mountain so close the horizon perpetuates itself a vagabond kiss a crocodile that seeks the same leathery embrace as a gramophone a cricket, an envelope imprinted on a tree the night is salt and your body is as greedy as the hills tangled limbs, eel limbs, limbs walking in a straight line where tigers run aground an octopus is the blouse of time a genome of alphabets a bird unfolds its face to the world the airport never promises anything but the vertigo of empty hands a body that rains like a dust cloud
To view more artwork like this, visit the Pieces Collection.
The Used Life 
10 responses to “In the Present Tense”
Beautiful poem.
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Thank you!
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Magnificent! I love all the imagery. This is fantastic. Well Done!
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Thank you, Bob!
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Wonderful poem..I love “this distance needs reckoning with a mountain so close the horizon perpetuates itself”..such a thought..our past needs reckoning with, the elephant in the room to deal with so that we can move forward as true as a perpetuating horizon.
And the line “the night is salt and your body is as greedy as the hills” is so good.. sometimes the body is insatiable, licking salt upon gaping wounds..well done, my friend 🙂
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Well said. I love your interpretation: “sometimes the body is insatiable, licking salt upon gaping wounds.” How true, indeed. The kind of quiet yearning that sometimes fills us, like an insatiable hunger, even when we’re uncertain what we’re hungering for. The body is very much a messenger of the spirit. I’m happy you enjoyed the poem! 😊
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I’ll hang it right next to the nude collection. Indeed, Dr. Cazzone is an artist…and a hot-blooded Italian American woman, as I understand her scholarly interests include that widely-debated topic, Freud, penis envy, and cultural constructions of the meatball. 🍝
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Ahh. Yes
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Wow, those words create worlds!
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Thank you very much!
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