National Poetry Month Day 5: Ari Banias
BLUE
Here the trees appear
pasted up against the side of it
in front of hills. Partly this has to do with light partly
with position.
Wanting a perceptual shift, stare up.
Against the side
of what has no sides
here in front of some hills with no front.
*
What it feels to be; what you are told.
The stubborn programming.
*
The single palm on the horizon
a shaggy lap dog. A figurine
on a mantel
waiting to be noticed or dusted…
*
The highway’s curve
is a thought someone had,
and we travel the shape
of that thought.
*
Space junk, earth junk, human waste.
From here looks “empty” or “clean.”
It’s a matter of position.
Police helicopters, pilotless aircraft, satellites,
warplanes I don’t know the names of.
The color deepens. Try to see this as a clarification.
*
Pacific grating the side of the bluff
Pacific we only touch like this
never arriving
*
A light in the distance. The idea of “the distance.”
*
I put my hand on your leg to assure myself
of what?
*
These mountains appear to divide
something green from something yellow
something brown from something browner. Something greyish with lines in it.
*
Multimillion-dollar homes small enough to crush under my thumb
***
Photograph of Ari Banias by Solmaz Sharif.