More than whispers, less than rumors
Bob hicok
The river is high. i would love to smoke pot
with the river. I would love if it rains
sat at my table and told me what it is
to lick Edith Piaf’s grave. I’ll think
I’m separated from the garbage day
and the weird hairstyle my cat wakes up with
but I am from the avalanche
as much as I am his tambourine.
The river breaks against my sleep
as if he took the applause apart and put it back together
like a riot of wet mouths
worshiping my ears, is above my head
when he explains string theory
and affection for me,
when he tells me to be the code breaker,
not the code. What does it mean?
Why does lyric poetry exist?
When will the water open her mouth
and tell us how to be clouds, how to rise
and transform and die and flourish and be reborn
all at the same time, all regardless
if we have food in our teeth or teeth in our eyes
or hair in our soup or a piano in our pockets,
just play the damn melody. The river is bipolar
but emptied his meds, I’m dead
but someone has to finish all the cheese
in the fridge, we are a failed species
if suction cups are important, if intelligence
is not noted on a curve,
but if despair counts, if thunderstorms
the noise in our heads is it given a pass
and the rivers swell because the orchestras
aren’t always there when you need them, well,
I still don’t know anything
