Joseph Farley

I’m not important.
I know that.
But I like to pretend
that I am.
It makes my legs flow
easier into my trousers.
I walk bolder, more upright,
not quite a king
or even a duke,
just a peasant with swagger
and knives in his eyes.

All the things inside me
real or imagined
only exist as
chemical charges
bouncing along
tangles of neurons

while outside the sun
burns in distant space
and birds flock
into my garden
on this rainy day
snatching what they believe

will sustain them
as I search
inside and out
for manna flowing
from the fingers
of trees.

editors note: We snatch what we can catch; before heaven snatches it back. – mh clay

No, the mountain will not crumble
If you stare it down.
No, the sky will not change
To a shade of green
Because your palette calls for it.
This is where you are.
The scenery is your life.
If there’s a story to this,
You’re in it,
Maybe not the lead,
Maybe just an extra,
A face along the way.
Where? I don’t know.
I didn’t get a copy of the script.
Did you?

You cannot look at the flowers.
The sunrise is off limits.
The list will grow tomorrow.

The mask you wear is no longer sufficient.
Blinders and a gag must be fashioned to fit.
Sit on your hands and talk to no one.

Pretend you do not exist.
The rest of us will do the same,
Pretending you are not there

Until you take the hint,
and disappear.
Hurry up. We’re waiting.

black swallows fly across yellow sky,
morning maybe, or setting sun.
the world seems so small,
no bigger than a postcard.
you feel you could reach out and take
the whole scene in your hand
and carry it away in your pocket,
but all you have is your eyes
and mind and memory and two swallows
flying across a yellow sky.

The heart wants what it wants
And the cock longs
For what it desires.

The subject is not always
The same,
Though it might
Overlap.

Great if it does,
If not, trouble,
For the heart must have
And so must the worm.

There is no future for these words,
No one will mumble and moan
This poem in a thousand years.

Read it now and throw it away.
Add it to the trash heap
We’ll leave behind.

A group project
We’ve created
To outlast us all.

life is poison,
yet I must drink it.
there is no other beverage
that gets me so drunk.

Saints have their warts.
Demons hide their halos.

We’re a mixed bag,
never all of one
and none of the other,

Too much effort
to be pure
good or evil,

Don’t be surprised
by the devil’s kindness,

Or when an angel
Sets you up for a fall.

There is what you want,
And there is what you settle for,
The bird you try to catch,
And the one that winds up
In your hands.

One may have borne you
On its back,
Across seas and summer fields
To its eyrie
In the peaks of your desire.

The other, well,
It sits there,
And maybe gives you eggs,
Or just turds,
But it is yours,
To feed and care for,

Or pluck and eat,
If you think you are
Still brave and nimble enough
To grab golden feathers
In the wind.