EVERYTHING MERGES WITH NIGHT
(it's a dream of the end (the mountain (the sun
(but the world is burning (I don’t care what I
know (I feel so sick
(the puritan diaries (“American” self
(maybe I'm a liar (half joke, half damage (rain
pouring down (the big branches move (the
secrets in the gutters (the dream death (the
corpse gives commands (we stay inside our
city (cold city
(cold night (a picture of a thought (a garden
(skyscrapers, empty tombs (soul of bullets (I
was exploding
(everything’s corpse light (my mother won’t
speak (I tried to be joy (walking home (cold
night (red frozen sky
(spin the night
(will we
kill the
world
(the sky
(is fire
(shed
your
skin
(did we
kill the
world
(will we
kill the
world
(look
(green water
CRACKED ACTOR
(the soul was a spy, the soul was a forest, the
soul was a shipwreck, the soul was a mouth
(“does God love me”
(the new warning is fire in your
face
(system collapse
(I
thought I
had a
future (I
(I want joy
(I taste poison
(I am the ghost of I, etc. (I was a fool,
I had a plan, and water was my dirty
name, I’m writing inside death, I’m
in the room
(in the sweet exhale of July (where dead
zones pock the mind (just west of the end
of the world (where the local lost boy
nailed dogs to the walls of his shack
(where the headless ghost dogs run
through the waste
(and walls of flame (and walls of flame
(you spin the spin, you go insane, you
eat the light, you eat the pain
(fire
tsunami;
birds
on fire
(just breathe
night,
breathe
night
(forever
(just
say
drop your
eyes right
here
(“quick,
learn
to die”
(the animals
are dead, are dying (mom,
you read the books to me, and
I tried
(my legs are trembling, my hands are
trembling (believe me, don’t believe me, I
don’t care (I was the future, says the
nothing man (I was the future for a day
or two
Joseph Lease's critically acclaimed books of poetry include Fire Season (Chax Press, 2023), The Body Ghost (Coffee House Press, 2018), Testify (Coffee House Press, 2011), and Broken World (Coffee House Press, 2007). Lease’s poems "'Broken World' (For James Assatly)" and "Send My Roots Rain" were anthologized in Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology. Lease’s poem "'Broken World' (For James Assatly)" was anthologized in The Best American Poetry (Robert Creeley, Guest Editor). His poem “Free Again (Why don’t people)” was published in The New York Times. Lease is a Professor of Writing and Literature at California College of the Arts.