Poems from THE NOTES

—You’re young, a gap, a fortuitous void.

If the world were to stop we’d all fly off.

Don’t look at me. I may, or may not, catch you.

[How pretty (definable) are you?—More importantly,
how heavy are my feet?]

You are no more meaning than mine!

…I meant:
Moonlight is sentimental, and radio songs
came at me in the dark when I was young:

“The lights are on but you’re not home.”

I’ve come to this place by truck, from the sun.

On Apollo’s rays I’ve been given back to find my place.

To trap you on a piece of tape. To put you on the right track.

And kiss your face with dewy lips and panic set in. Balanced. Backing
out from the way in. Crudely finding love on sheets of music,
unsung. Undone by your hands.That’s why I’ve come back to get you.

You have only to remember the lines you’ve yet to make up!

This is for the ghost in your chest that makes that whisper. Murmur.
This is for the ghost in your breath that makes your heart turn over.
This is for the song the ghosts sing over your head and below your belly, by the night,
the grapevine growth. Creek water run. Crickets legs breaking.
Ways the waves of light wash over the horizon from the East the Sound
Crickets sleep like I do.

My word
on a napkin
the note slipped
between your lips

on accident

~~~

The married couple is divorced by now I’m sure you’re sure of that.

The end is in and begun again. The cycle. The moon
is retro. Apollo the sun is the original. We’ll bring it all back
unable to let a thing go but unable to really grasp
anything, so we’ll keep the crickets in the jar until they starve
and finding some more
convinced you know
how to make it work this time.

Only Apollo’s chariots will be sent to the glass
when,
distracted, you caught the last act of 1977. That’s when I
was born
in The Sound
of reverb, flange and chorus with Echo’s belly
full and round. As the moon.
Back again.
In style.

~~~

Angels in the bell tower are ringing! ringing!

From the ground you can tell them by their shadows.
By their easy gate and swing.

the bells are for singing. They are to continue this All that is.

Angels floating above the Sangrail!

I wish I could have been there around the Round Table.
I could have saved so many lives
in the Christmas light
and been the Hero of a new era:

I could have said: Before this Round Table where we all speak equally, gentlemen and fair women, listen now to all I say for I am from the future and have seen all the things past what you have seen. I know things impossible to yourselves and this time. This is all I have to say for I’ve read of the plights of your Knights and your ways about adventure. I know you wish to complete the most righteous quests and reach the highest peaks of worshipfulness. But let me tell you now. This is simple. Don’t begin what you already will. What you believe in: Don’t seek it out.”

~~~

Back to the choir in the bleacher seats. Sitting under sunshine,
bellowing. Crying. Magnifying the sunlight on their skin, and burning.

Moonlight is taken, but often taking
too much

THE LIGHTS ARE ON BUT YOU’RE NOT HOME

Placement of each foot is a sick adjustment.

Water splitting scenes/ seams, wading. Seems water

is spitting water and gathering, amiss now. Gathered.
Fog rolls over the bridge. Disappears. Appears, disappears and
reappears. No magic trick. Organic. The way the weather changes
from time to time
can make you sick. It all comes back again. Againandagain.

Like the bean to the beanstalk and Jack to Jill’s backside.

The water.

Into a cup. Drink.

the way the lights
turn off when the building’s done.

~~~

Before the waves
stands the line
the ghost of its presence
always in its existence, left
after its exit.

The hour of decay. A rusty sentence.

My penance for a tune, attuned and on a wire.
Balancing the ghosts, the angels, the shadow and my
own
very
fitting
attire. Adjusted. Measured.My atonement
for a choir. How I burned.

For a song.

Logan Ryan Smith lives in San Francisco where he publishes Transmission Press chapbooks, and the poetry mag, small town. He is the author of THE SINGERS (Dusie Press Books) and STUPID BIRDS
(TRANSMISSION PRESS). His poetry can be found in New American Writing, the tiny, Bombay Gin, string of small machines, Sorry for Snake, detumescence.com, dusie.org, Spell, Hot Whiskey Magazine, and
elsewhere, as well as in the anthologies Bay Poetics (Faux Press) and The Meat Book (Hot Whiskey Press).