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There is a likeness of his birth
as a bull in a China shop.
Peking ducks flew
from their conditions.
If he would have thought
of these articulations,
if where there is insurmountable peace
there was a loud clash before,
that is none of my business.
Didn’t know where
I was going to sleep
so I didn’t
know they were burying
the cold draft in this old house
the peanuts dug themselves out
White men throwing down metal
from the roof off all the paprika hills
upon walking upon me
I had wanted them to keep quiet
for my thoughts to write down
if I needed respite
There was so much no sleep
there was the cold draft at night
there was dreams as ideas
My red dreams had been these hills
to keep me for the night
was my hermeneutic
where the air formed post-enlightenment
Likewise I suspected that the only religion was sleep
that hills were only fields out this deep.
No breath in my lungs
nor sleep
inside
these Southern towns
who harbor
the sun-dried
waves of
the orange cats to me
like I’m their mother.
I was on the falling
blooms the drifters
fell
looking at the cats
saw through the cracking
a fog
of reason
the shape of nothing
like forms.
When these cats get
out their checkbooks
say “Sign here and here”
like I owed them
more than nothing.
Dogwood askew
trampled the
cats bucking
I think about
the narcissism
of buds falling their
presentation so smooth,
the big difference
between this and Athens,
between this and that no
matter if we like it. I love
America it says: love me
but never as I envy you. Or not.
What do you want
my beautiful
ladies?
I hear the seven cats
singing hymns
awaiting the dogwood
with the fading tune that dreams won’t keep angels from here.
Twitter: @ghostofolson
