Great white arms,
churning through the air,
turning toward the wind;
heliotropes facing the sun.
At night
they blink a low red warning
light, and in the calm
the drone of their motion
hums down into my valley
where they keep watch.
When I hear this sound
I think of pop-culture music
reviews and some DJ some-
where calling the sound
“sweet” with no connection
to the rain-soaked ground
beneath my feet, or the memories
that haunt me.
But what would my memories
have to do with the drone,
or the DJ, or the rain-soaked
ground, other than this is where
they form, as the world shimmers
through air I cannot see,
and gears turn in ways
I do not understand, and I
am filled with a warmth,
like a drone in a hive
filled purpose, shivering
while the world glistens.
My metaphor
is becoming
& in my transience
I’ve gone viral.
*
Sit loose,
my friends:
we’re ancient
beings, all
of us set in amber
weaving through
the conversations
spiraling above
us, ghosts like gnats
that hollow the air
around the buzz
& light, casting
our shadows
on all the un-
suspecting below,
the sigh of death
unnoticed &
rightly so.
*
When I say “And?”
& you reply “No.”
I see the rough stone
of your likening
already beginning
to become a fade,
the winds pausing
before then giving
their chase to me.
A petal
falls to the floor
& I forget to breath.
- Edward Montgomery
This beating heart
won’t stop;
ancillary madness—
a caged animal
determined
to gallup.
My inside voice
swallows.
It moves in
sine waves—
I think in math,
my metaphor,
transparent &
ghostlike
sashaying across
the spreading grass:
a field
that hides
the rushes—
knurls of feather
& kick;
colored earth,
flecked stone,
flexed against
instinct, perhaps
as numbers do,
ancient & unbending,
waiting
for me to speak
their name.
My inside voice
shudders,
cries calumny!
& then shrinks
back to energy,
to the hushed
moment
when I felt
the world shift,
brace,
then recover,
waiting
for the word
to be spoken
by another.
* * *
You want a story?
Ache for me &
then speak.
the routine
settles
like snow
yet to fall—
crystal potential,
unknown
but heavy
in the sky.
and now it is late.
the Autumn sits heavy outside my door,
aching in remembrance
pumpkins given way to rot,
ideas and imaginations,
entire worlds of our creation
longing in their subtle existence
for moments where they stay
forever lit, always flickering,
faces that are not our own
& a solemn embrace,
just a step beyond a song
where we hum the lyrics
to each other, gathered
hunched before a well-lit present
eager for the moment
when something,
anything,
makes a candle of sense.
i imagine your hand
reaching for my own,
your will searching
for something i can give.
pony up,
paddle-daddies—
shrug the sweat
from your shoulders;
anchor eddies;
spin in PTSD.
we’ve got chaos,
got power, burning
like a child’s shout
for all that’s not yet—
we’ve settled scores
with half-moon smiles.
nestle in,
canted dancers:
as if
you asked
for a different fate.
…the day
with its great pace
carries us, still
or kicking…
My wish would be
for someone, anyone
or thing to stay, go,
possibly retreat
until some things
were, more or less,
changed, but still
felt old as fire,
like flickering shadows—
to have
a new beginning
with an old ending
like it’s always
& never been.
*
“What are you looking at?”
“I’m looking at nothing.”
This Zine was kind enough to post one of my poems.
# 37
Picture a man
having his photo taken:
bald head open coat
stretched in the winds
on the coast of Iceland
his face absurd & focused
a look-at-me-see-me-now
flag-planting gleaming shot
waiting for its plastic frame
to sit undusted on the shelf
the same as all the others
object to confront subject
Iceland waiting to pin its place
amidst the nonplussed agitprop
contained in all the looks
peering squint open mouth
that he gives to each portrait
each moment preserved
& later monkishly considered
swirled moments re-imagined
each half-drunk settled night
where florescent light echoes
off the kitchen tile onto
the artifacts of his wandering
each pondering back at him
asking what steps are left
how many more looks
can be given.
Edward Montgomery
deadliftpoetry.tumblr.com
I once thought memory was hirsute,
the surface waves of what we know
mere bristles of a damp & musky beast,
muscle shifting the landscape like wind;
but now I know memory is limestone,
ancient cold bubbling ammonite,
chilled moments of sudden surrender
when your body yields its living heat.
I dreamed of a life
I could have lived
a swirl of choices
like water and drain
that sits below
(or above) the equator—
reversal or absence
happening like spring
rewound into buds.
I picked up words
from a crisp page
siphoned back with pen
unsparked neurons—
forget the steady rain
that fell between us
over around on over us,
watch the clouds roll back
to air currents sinking
into the patient Atlantic
where rain was forgot
until, of course, it rained
again
—so further then:
to dry oceans, to ancient
continents and people
sticks rocks fire
forget art and caves
flickering light first gasps
beasts waking first dreams
shadows of something
existing beyond the dust:
the young man
stops himself
from meeting
blue eyes
and backs away
unblinking.
Anti-intellect mind bedazzlings —
a crown of sitcoms
seated—squish!—directly
on my brain.
I’ve heard of self-sacrifice,
hyphenated virtues,
all the motivational blessings
chiding you for being human,
but forget nether-regions
when it seems evident
that most people will settle
cash their tickets whole
unused
for a postcard, a drip of reality
rather than the burning grip
of the whole
(we don’t want memories,
we want actors and stories
to laugh their little bell laughs
to tinkle and shine
in our own wrinkles)
Ache street second street, the first
one on which I grew up:
my memories are of leafy domes
wild bike rides, catching crayfish
in the creek we ruled as gods;
Oh yes, I can say
that I have been there,
I can say,
“I know this place.”
