Night Shift #13 (Ouch-e-wa-wa)

Accept my apology for fading like
interstellar radio signals.
My excuse is that now,
and for how long I do not know

life is a singularity, a planet in the
Goldilocks Zone. Verdant, green
and blue as we often expect, and
speckled with alien life forms.

Of course they are imaginary
and exist only as possibilities
in the convex mirror of
my relationship telescope.

Ah shit, I’m obfuscating again.
I meant to say: microscope
I meant to say: periscope.
I meant to say.

[RK, 4/13/21]


The Paper It’s Written On

Lack of commitment makes me weary, or
I weary of commitment. Either way you
must chose a respectable team to belong to.
I am the benched sideline freak of possibility.

Mark Twain said: The difference between the
right word and the almost right word,
is the difference between lightning
and the lightning bug.

He didn’t have to sit through endless
semi-finals with splinters in his ass.
He didn’t need to negotiate contracts
made of rainwater and misdemeanors.

[RK, 4/13/21]

Voice

I remember your voice
only because a Norwegian artist
captured it in an oil painting
in 1893.

I learned that tidbit in art school.
You were the woman in the trees
wide awake, still as belladonna
before the rain.

Everywhere I went you followed.
Somewhere forgetfulness crept in,
hammered my memory, lost
in a land of midnight sun.

I can and cannot remember.
What does listening sound like?

[RK, 4/13/21]

[Edvard Munch, “The Voice”, 1893, oil on canvas, 87.5 x 108 cm., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, USA]