Blue or Green

  by James Galvin

We don't belong to each other.
            We belong together.
                                                                   Some poems 
belong together to prove the intentionality of subatomic particles.
                                     
Some poems eat with scissors.
                                                     Some poems are like kissing a 
porcupine. 
                   God, by the way, is disappointed in some of your recent 
choices.
               Some poems swoop.
                                                   When she said my eyes were 
definitely blue, I said, How can you see that in the dark?
          How can
you not? she said, and that was like some poems.
                                                                                  Some poems are 
blinded three times.
                                   Some poems go like death before dishonor.
                                                                      
Some poems go like the time she brought cherries to the movies; 
later a heedless picnic in her bed.
                   Never revered I crumbs so
highly.
            Some poems have perfect posture, as if hanging by 
filaments from the sky. 
                                        Those poems walk like dancers, 
noiselessly.
                      All poems are love poems.  
                                                                   Some poems are better off 
dead.
           Right now I want something I don't believe in.

from: As Is. Copyright 2009. 
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by James Galvin

Let us begin with a simple line,

Drawn as a child would draw it,

To indicate the horizon,

More real than the real horizon,

Which is less than line,

Which is visible abstraction, a ratio.

The line ravishes the page with implications

Of white earth, white sky!

The horizon moves as we move,

Making us feel central.

But the horizon is an empty shell—

Strange radius whose center is peripheral.

As the horizon draws us on, withdrawing,

The line draws us in,

Requiring further lines,

Engendering curves, verticals, diagonals,

Urging shades, shapes, figures…

What should we place, in all good faith,

On the horizon? A stone?

An empty chair? A submarine?

Take your time. Take it easy.

The horizon will not stop abstracting us.

from: Resurrection Updated: Collected Poems 1975-1997 by James Galvin. Copyright © 1997 by James Galvin.