Window Glass

Dec 29 2010

Window Glass

by Wulf Losee

i.

I can feel the pressure of the sun’s light through the plate glass. I close my eyes, and I can feel the quantum surf singing through the window. I can feel the light’s heat on my face. It is a solar flare that echoes down the corridor behind me. For that moment I wish that I could dissolve into that ocean of light.

ii.

In the parking lot the sun dogs play. They dance on the autos’ windshield glass and poke their playful rays between the slats of the discolored yellowed blinds, to pierce the air-conditioned shadows of the coffee shop with slit-fingers that stroke my hands and book — glowing lines of solitude in a busy place.

iii.

Just before the edge of evening, the light falls against the wall in the last warm spectrum of the afternoon. It rises around us to greet our shadows, and the last illumination of a hanging photograph fades like a morning star and is carried across into the underworld, into the afterglow of the blue hour.

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Breathe

Nov 28 2010

This was the first poem I wrote after a 25-year hiatus. It was written as a challenge from a friend. I was at an open mic a little over a year ago — where I heard some godawful poem being read. I mumbled to host of the open mic that the poem being recited was pretty lame. The host turned to him and said: “Can you do better?” I took up that challenge…

Breathe

by Wulf Losee

I will unfold a smile for strangers,
weak enough to comfort those I leave behind.
Instead of seraphim, masked and green gowned
psychopomps attend my final ceremony.
Ignore the cacophony of the flatlined EKG.
And the fading voices of the doctors and technicians
Brush assistance away as I enter the final meditation,
Ignore the sterile lights and the burn of the needles,
And the unraveling, and the dizziness,
Spinning, roaring, falling…
Remember that last dry breath of oxygen.

Remember.

Last breath…

Exhale.

“Let us wade across the river,” you say.
You stumble on the cobbles, and, balance lost,
you roll back and flop, seated in the water,
And you laugh as the current lifts you.
Reaching for my hand, your motion is caught
By a dragonfly landing on your wrist.
You blow on it, but it stubbornly
Trims its wings to your breath and will not leave
Until you throw it into flight.
You splash me. I catch you, and then…

In a slow eternity of motion, our…

Lips touch.

Exhale.

Sunlight scattered through the icicles –
First memories, these. How young was I?
Wobbling on soft-boned legs,
I try to grab them through the winter glass.
Light will be my special toy to play with,
Until the sun thaws and breaks their needles,
And crystals skitter on the porch.
Small hands cannot hold them.
The voices of my parents sound further
Down the corridor each day.

Will I laugh or cry?

I’m not quite sure.

Exhale.

And to the student who dissects my corpse,
What will you find with your scalpel
That’s sharpened like an angel’s wing?
Please search for my lost memories
Hidden in the folds and stitchings of dead nerves.
But will your hand tremble as you probe and cut?
First-time jitters with the dead will be forgotten.
But will you pause before that first incision –
Gagging on the taste of sour sweet formaldehyde?
Night blooming flowers of the dead –
The scent of asphodel is painful to the living.

Take a deep breath.

Don’t cough.

Exhale.

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Voicelight first post

Nov 23 2010

This is using a simpler template.

-Davefour nostalgias

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