Dry Grass
Lightning loves me
Sometimes we bite each other
and I burn for weeks
My smoke drives you
out
of your house
and into your breath
Coyote on the road
wants to know if you will follow
if you can now taste yourself
in the air.
From a dead fox in a suburban backyard
Do not forget
to address your letter to the absences,
your questions concerning the sky
and the mountain’s destination as it disappears
along with the blue songs
that nest in your nights.
And will I continue to nurse
the silvery nerve of the earth
conducting the first and last
syllable of your name?
To find the silences in there
is to glimpse the falcon in flight
only a few know how to follow
as it collects every angle of emptiness
in order to pull out of its dive
while in an instant, the voice of your infant
gone. Your own breath
broken at both ends.
Algorithm, this suturing and tearing.
Do not bury me in a world of less and less.
Wind and sun will wash me
will dissolve the last scent of milk,
will scatter us into the voices of others.
This poem first appeared in The Bitter Oleander
Signal to Noise
“Stop Tata! Stop right here!”, my son announces
as we return home from a long evening walk.
He walks to the edge of yet another garden
stretching out his arms
as if to hug someone invisible.
“Hello Flowers!” he announces.
With his face, he caresses calla lilies, lavender
even the dandelions blooming in the gutter.
He whispers to them. It takes some time,
a secret between him and the flowers.
When an understanding is reached, he stands up
and announces loud enough for the neighbors to hear,
“Thank you Flowers! Good night!”
“C’mon Nikche, let’s go home,
that’s enough.” I say, impatient, turning to go.
“Shh!” the response as we walk away.
“What are they saying to you?”
“Shh! You talk too much. You are noise!”
About The Author Robert Pesich is the editor of Swan Scythe Press. He is also the President of Poetry Center San José and the coordinator for the Well-RED Reading Series hosted by Works/San José. He also works as a research associate and lab manager in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at Stanford University and for the Palo Alto Institute for Research & Education at the Veterans Administration Hospital, Palo Alto. His work has appeared in many reviews including The Redwood Coast Review , The Bitter Oleander, Skidrow Penthouse, Red Wheelbarrow, Porter Gulch Review and Círculo de Poesía (Mexico). In 2009, he was awarded the Littoral Press Poetry Prize, a fellowship from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and was a resident at the Djerassi Resident Artist Program as well as in January 2013. In 2004, he was awarded an artist fellowship from Arts Council Silicon Valley. In 2001, he authored the chapbook Burned Kilim (Dragonfly Press). A second collection of poetry, Night Sutures, is in submission. He is working on a third collection of poetry titled Ostrakon. He and his partner Sanja live with their two sons in Sunnyvale, California.
The Outdoor Poet is edited by Robert Sward, author of numerous books of poetry including, most recently, New and Selected Poems: 1957-2011 (Red Hen Press). He lives on the Westside with his wife, the artist Gloria Alford, and a poodle mix named Cosette. Participation in The Outdoor Poet is by invitation.
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