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Dave Horton Poem
The problem is her lips.
They don't form smiles any more than waves decide of their own accord
to lift themselves up off of the ocean's surface.
And if lips are meant to be drowsy shutters
then hers fail miserably; crinkling apologetically
and they let everything, everything through!
The problem is her skin.
So pale, translucent; so tender: it scarcely seems up to the task
of keeping her separate from the rest of the world.
The skin of a silver birch in winter’s pale moonlight-
and it lets everything, everything through!
Waves, I know, are a dance of love
made as the ocean coils and compacts:
the unknowable fullness of its billowing depths
backing tightly against the deep-packed sand
and backing tightly against the rock-ribbed earth
miles below
and then, exploding outwards-
self throwing self across space.
O, please - take caution in this place!
Don't mistake that which is invisible
for being tiny, or cramped or crabbed into corners
for it is immense and all around you.
Don't name it, and in naming it relegate it
to forgotten dusty corridors in your mind.
It lives in dimensions you cannot see.
It hurts to take it all in -- I know
gut-sore, deep within, and I can barely stand it.
The great humped yearning force of the ocean
is a problem
as it flows past me, cloaked like a solar wind.
See! It stretches to reach, and finally, to touch
the face of that gloaming, thirsty moon.
Never doubt that it does.
People, I know, are odd constructs of stardust-
each one of us, nothing
but beautiful particles
fired in long-ago galaxies
hurled out from innumerable dying stars.
Countless spidery green lines written out
on the vaulted void parchment of the universe
arcing achingly across time and space
to join, unexpectedly: this is here. this is now.
O, the equation of me! the equation of you!
Everything, everything flows past me!
and her lips let it through
and her skin lets it through
and I may buckle and fall to my knees.
She shines, and I think:
she must have a history
far greater than she knows.
Remnants of an ancient once-proud star
and tiny re-crossed travelers have been reunited in her against all odds
joyfully resuming their half-remembered nuclear handshake
that once powered an entire solar system.
They are busting out streams of limpid photons the color of egg yolks
and they flow from her like a rampaging waterfall in the Spring:
past her lips
and through her skin
and out through her hopeful eyes
until, at last, all that is left races, laughingly,
through the raveled lengths of her brimming, brimming, golden hair.
Copyright © Dave Horton | Year Posted 2012
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Dave Horton Poem
In the sun-blanketed town square
the young family pause and rest:
young father, young mother, young child.
They are just starting out.
And a good start, it would appear-
happy father, happy mother, happy child.
Happy little world:
the elements of their contentedness
seem gathered comfortably about them
like an unpacked picnic lunch.
The two sit on an old stone wall,
with the baby stroller drawn up close.
The father takes time
to give the child a proper fright: leaning in close
he makes a fearful monster face,
and holds his hands behind his head to make furry monster ears
and curls his lips to show gnashing monster teeth
and howls his great monster howl.
The child is at that age
where it seems
his parts have only just found some sort of working order.
Now, he can scarcely control them:
shrieking in a delicious cocktail of delight, fear, and sunshine.
He shakes like the airframe of a fat cargo plane
passing through a turbulent storm in the skies above,
as if an unseen force is shaking him apart.
And I think:
this is how death will come for us
with its great grinning teeth
until we shake, laughing and crying
into something we are not.
Copyright © Dave Horton | Year Posted 2013
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Dave Horton Poem
A small stretch of bar to call my own:
I cover it with my paper and a thin book of poems -
Most I don't understand at all
Some, unfortunately, I understand too well.
A TV in the corner
tut tuts 20 thousand screaming Yankee fans
into a shushing murmur that drifts
amongst the guests like an oversolicitous maitre' d.
I discuss favorite movies with the bartenders -
kids really, and one, incredulously
insists that Running Scared, the Paul Walker version,
is the best movie ever.
I could love him for that.
Disembodied pieces of conversations
roam unmolested through the air -
"What are you doing after work tonight?" -
"Smoking marijuana"
And
"Lets put on our PJs".
Copyright © Dave Horton | Year Posted 2012
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Dave Horton Poem
I knew her as you'd know the sun-
If never you'd seen it blaze above
But you had seen the moon in phase
shimmer and seek that sun's proud gaze.
And on a sweet hot summer night
When low and laden it comes in sight
Holding forth and honey swirled
The horizon crossed, it makes the world.
Then through that moon, you'd know that sun
And you'd love the other, if you loved the one.
Planets also need their sun
Some scurry close, the dark undone
Still others scattered - a creator's wiles?
They meter out the milky miles.
Far from home, in darkness wrapt
But onwards, onwards attend the task!
From across the distance a gentle tug
Is gravity a kind of hug?
It leads them on, a course defined
No witness to their great unwind.
In someday's someday, the bravework done
Let them fall into that loving sun.
Copyright © Dave Horton | Year Posted 2012
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Dave Horton Poem
She left
and the job went too.
Empty
I watch them go
like two trains
charging for the horizon
someplace worth getting to, fast.
Alone.
I am an abandoned town.
The once-proud schools
have all been informed
that they are only buildings
after all.
And the silent ballfields
look foolish-
still fully dressed
still eagerly clutching
their neatly squared bases.
But this morning I awoke from dreamless black sleep,
to find the world had made itself anew.
Someone, apparently, had coaxed it through a car wash:
all sparkling puddles and whistle-sharp shafts
of clean sunshine.
Spring leaves shine with dew,
wriggling wildly in the wind like fresh ponies
and when the wind eases momentarily
they hold out their palms to show me their tiny prizes.
And the air - the air!
Springtime fresh, it's fierce, and alive-
the air of high mountain passes
has turned up down here, somehow.
It seems
the world makes itself anew
for me
every day
and I would do well
would I do the same.
Copyright © Dave Horton | Year Posted 2014
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