Draw the curtains, dim the lamp… let the glow of hummingbirds, pollen and chinaberries illuminate your sky. Give yourself to lights of Friday Night, as imagined by Ashley Martin, Cindy Keong & this Lost Shark.
**********
Me with a machete, going at the chinaberry tree
- Vic Chesnutt
Your fingernails are caked with blood.
Branches curse themselves for not
having the jewels to dazzle you first.
The fallen fruit suffers night sweats.
A lump in the throat.
Your face is so sweet, hummingbirds
hover just above your eyes, waiting
to drink. As a boy, I imagine you crammed
as many chinaberries as you could
into your mouth. High on Speed Racer.
No-one bothered to stop you. In college that hyper-
attitude took your legs. You found the newspaper girl
hanging from a branch by the lake. Everything was frozen.
If you had cut down that chinaberry tree, her feet
would not have left the ground.
There were headlines: Ants collected
in the tread of her shoes. Ducks waited
for the thaw. And birds gathered
black as the voice in your head, turning
the moment into song.
GN
**********
CK
**********
There are ten other clusters
like the one we are in
resembling boxes
with pin holes in the top
but this one has refined
electrodynamic need
for bees and for pollen
the hummingbird migrations
to cities with builders
wanting to move and to do
what it is that stars do
to us looking up at them.
AM
excellent, excellent, excellent…all three of you…what else can i say…?
Thank you, thank you, thank you Claudia!
Thanks, Claudia!
As Claudia notes ‘excellent’ not much else to say than that.
And a big thank you to you too Charles,
Yeah. That’s fantastic.
This is, indeed, one hell of a three piece.
Fantastic, Graham. Chilling. x