m review — poetry — must all things — cloud pond — winter in the city —
some say the year begins in ice
First Place in Poetry — 2006 M Review Writing Contest
Must all things
by Dan Raphael
when something that was isn't
been two weeks since i looked
months since anyone touched me on purpose
like a street with no houses,
an oak tree mired in maple and pine
or is it my hand or eyes
when the input gets mistranslated,
when my brain thinks the outside world is memories to be reconstructed —
she looks like college, this smells like arizona
I only wear glasses when I sleep
I take anti-dream pills before bed and shower every morning,
drying off with the news
sometimes the mirror is a flat screen tv
sometimes the satellite dish is my hat
with only myself and cats to talk to
cats that leave after 3 days without food, carving graffiti on my metal door
the door is locked from the outside
the window handles have been replaced with crayons
I take 50 paces inside the refrigerator, find a soft rockless spot, and meditate into napping
the condiments and vegetables gather at my feet like disney critters
the truth is thirst
hunger begins at home
I wake up hungry and silent, confused for lack of a bathroom,
the waters run away
the sunlight is taxed by federal, state and local clouds
the name of this country is lost in the history books
the name of this town is on the biggest headstones
if i could get out of the house
but by the time i'm reassembled
the phone and computer have messages for me:
it's my turn to electrify the neighborhood
a bird with my face is about to explode
Honorable Mention in Poetry — 2006 M Review Writing Contest
Cloud pond
by Dan Raphael
windows die more quickly in places without rain,
like when all the cats go away hawks come closer, winnowing what moves
without the wind:
in every skyfull there's a cloud with my face
as somewhere in my brain is always raining
if the sky was as thin as my flesh it would be the same color
when rain is scattered into gas; when sky is calcified to snow.
when I was a kid I made angels face down, trying to fly
into the warmth of the earth, into the dark silence.
when food hit the ground my mother would bless it to cancel out the devil's touch
I didn't worry about rain
I prayed for enough snow to close school
I want everything covered in the white water, the cold chemical stillness
as my heart disperses to my extremities, blood simmering just below my eyes,
blood wired with molten ghosts, as if my first breath was redolent with pittsburgh steel,
blessed in the ash of sacramental coal, flames too intense to go out, breathing in fuel
with the louvered wind, futilely trying to get the metal ghosts to stay aloft,
clouds slowly molting their water to reveal their inner fusion,
titanium is just a rare flavor, copper makes me feel at home
before I hold my tongue out to the rain I remember where the wind's been,
where I was damp when I woke.
to stand on my head in the rain,
to spread my hair in a fresh puddle as if it's a willow shadow, an invisible net
where new rain will learn to fly
Winter in the city
by Dan Raphael
From my window I see so many windows I can't see into
the air is not as neutral as I was led to believe,
planting messages in my lungs, subtly directing my eyes
so I see sponsors before I see the unlabeled
the best things in life cost extra
the best life has the best things
members only
by subscription
if we don't know you you can't come in
credit rating has replaced scent
if you break the rules you can't go out
someone is paying for all this light
which is not illumination
which changes color and size
objects seen in the mirror may be nothing like they appear
20/20 is in the eyes of the sponsor
in the distance is new construction
ignore the crumbling inner city
the unsafe neighborhoods where brands are obscured with tattoos
secret handshakes done with hands in pockets
meaningful glances behind dark lenses
encryption is everywhere
are your virus filters up to date
if you ask me no questions I'll still make things up
Some Say the Year Begins in Ice
by Dan Raphael
when I feel the fire feels me
an arpeggio of warming windows mildly threatening to shatter or melt:
i think its sleigh bells, the wind murmuring curses of friction, demanding the rough edges break
as this marathon from the north erases holiday warmth
as if each building a saxophone with so many escapes to finger,
each acre a sitar of uncountable strings-some tunable some droning whenever they speak
like a parrot whos heard many orchestras but no voices
i hear words when water drips from faucet, when rebellious rays of light
bounce against the windows impervious coat
the fire seems fast but each loglet is several years of information and opinions,
compact & monotonous as news with a modulating stream of updates
the earths magnetic pole straws from untranslatable space-we take in from the ends
and release at the imaginary middle, as a bodys thin at skull and feet
but we dont know how to release all the belly has learned-
layering on each other to protect us from our own image,
a beam so thick it can support a roof but not itself
- 2 -
when I feel the wind rings all my doorbells, taps on all my windows,
causes every pipe to chime with temptation to stop flowing & sleep, close my eyes
to the negative heat, to the candescent dark of winters mummery---
from the top of my root-head to the furthest reaches within my bones,
cul-de-sacs long fortified against capillary & nerve frond, dark so thick
it seems a leaden door-only the massively blank can enter here, only the pieces
rejected by recycling and incineration stumble to these valleys
where we conjure up eclipses & blackouts, when all the dancing & chatter stops
we can hear the deeper beat, the measured complex of entropy,
the wobble of balls just barely spinning but never coming to rest
yet light will always break through, as every roof, every stream held back will leak
madrigals of decrystallization remove the heather walls,
throw birds with snow-flaked wings through my homes many mouths--
i could be in the middle of the living room, touching nothing, invisible til probability arrives
viewed from its thinnest edge a pizza box balloons open a tunnel with many windows
dissolving cityscapes in time-elision
- 3 -
i get thicker to stay the same, get darker to maintain my light
held inside everything that herds my dreams between my ear canyons
as a single snowflake entering my brain could cause a variety of spasms absences flares,
my ears single-pane windows clattered with the sleet of mis-packeted language-
the bricks forgot how they connect, the trees plumbing works its way to the outside
where sugars all head toward the sun leaving droves of insects and teenagers
dead from ecstatic acceleration, corpuscles racing toward the abyss of oxygen,
saying everything they've ever heard then merging with the void of exhausted phonemes,
as what has gathered on the street will find its own way of dissolving:
the new art form of removing pieces of flesh, notches and holes,
losing weight aerodynamically, giving blood & nerves less live flesh to tend
improves job efficiency and unemployment, fires imagination like hunger and cheap alcohol
I can have all the candles I want but only one match and no windows
- 4 -
vertical water freezing disagreeably
the window holds months of memories between its panes—
windows kept in the dark for years implode with hunger if suddenly exposed to full sun
—we melt slowly, we harden gradual
layers removed as I turn on sleeps lathe, aiming for perspective
as if a flying video camera became our god—we dance for it, offer it drama and color,
times ive slept for decades thinking I'd remember, thinking my brain wouldn't turn infantile,
old files encrypted in someone else's dreams where snow is the sky gods seed
& we all run open mouthed, straight necked, for the exact flake
to fall unhindered to the bottom of my lungs, splitting oxygen to make water, splitting water
to make light, splitting light to make shadow, stacking shadows into bones, stacking bones
into skyscraping pyres challenging the gods with smoke and chemistry—–
coz they were only interested in variety, not what happened when two or three mixed together,
when mass made pressure, made mountains, made barriers,
enough bubbling in the oldest caldera to feed every decompressing file,
code multiplying at lightspeed to rebuild muscle and will, skin outgrowing itself so many times
we are inches deep in genetic snow hiding all the landmarks we noted
in this panoramic plain pelted with sharp corners & tender surfaces ready to collapse
and meld forgotten flesh with ours still pumping warm, chemical momentum
repeating the past with modern coincidence selecting files in foreign languages
to power this machine whose core password is my name
- 5 -
moon beams on frozen white schoolyard
an ocean with its own light, the dreams of grass long surrendered to the future
driven to press their tongues on the transparent underside
ululating a cacophonous blues celebration I feel in several body zones
ice whiter than the moon can know, flailing like a bucket on a string,
driven through the buckets bottom to a lineless moist horizon
that prays against gravity, prays against evaporative sun-flash:
how some clouds are misers, some clouds simply incontinent,
no place to put a name, no structure to navigate with more than mass and memories—
sometimes the more I let go, the more room I have for repetition—
some clouds give everything they have and fly months later on the underside of petals
bursting like a hibernating worm-sigh planting more air beneath the surface, planting future stars
migrate slowly to the source of their conflagration:
ice always thinks its moving
(written during Portland's ice storm of 1/04)
Dan Raphael of Portland, Oregon
"Must All Things" is First Place in the Poetry catagory of the M Review 2006 Writing Contest and "Cloud Pond" is an Honorable Mention in Poetry in the M Review 2006 Writing Contest.
Portland poet Dan Raphael has performed his work thoughout the Northwest, including Wordstock, Bumbershoot, Powell's Books, Walla Walla Poetry Party, and the Burning Word. His most recent books are "When a Flying City Falls" and "Showing Light a Good Time." Current poems appear in Clackamas Literary Review, Pemmicna, Urvox, Semantikon and Red Sky Morning. During the day, Dan works at the Lake Oswego DMV.
