After the Phone Conversation With Duane Locke

Painting by Duane Locke


AFTER THE PHONE CONVERSATION WITH DUANE LOCKE


for Duane Locke


Before the phone conversation with Duane Locke
I wandered through
the many rooms of my left foot
basked in the medallion heat of ancient wars
discovered the dull blade of buttered tongues.
I am here to tell you it is possible to get lost
in your left foot
when you wear the nomad robes of gnostic gods
and forget to look toward the lightning nebulae.
I am here to say that no memory of slaveships
or diamond lighthouses will free you
from your questions, no
syncopate nocturnal image will hover above you
like the succubus you once seduced on a blue island.

During the phone conversation with Duane Locke,
this is what I needed:


a broken walnut
a bent crowbar full of rain
the nested sex of eyelids
the incompatible derangement of the lizard brain
silent birds breaking from white waves
a desire to find the frozen tulips
yellow red in the animal noontime
the multisyllabic yet monotone voice of strangers
and a druid moon to open its cyclops eye within me.


During the phone conversation with Duane Locke,
this is what I had:


one empty eggshell
two raindrops
three eyelashes
four evolutions of the neocortex
five styrofoam statues of an albatross
six constellations of mythic animals
seven stutters of a rhetorical argument
and eight epic quests to choose from.


After the phone conversation with Duane Locke
I roused the darker slumbers within me
put the amber daylight to bed
crawled into its dreams
and swung like the sun through the stars.


Richard Smyth

Posted over on Anabiosis Press