Self-Portrait as the Downhill Slide (Section 2]
This is not healthy—there is nothing left to taste—each day unwraps a packet of light and vomits into the sink—she tried to sell her waves—and there was no festival in the mud—crocuses, ice, sparrows—eyes moved in the branches and were gone—she invented a city to give to the demon—
She would keep him listening—inside the hill she tried to sell her words—the world did only paint and lie—painting the picture she painted when she believed herself—clean march sunlight, empty words—wash the wall, scrub it, let it dry—maybe I’m just nuts—wouldn’t that be fine—now the old bridge, half-dismantled—rust and moss-green iron—white trunk near the yellow air-hammer—
That’s like gold, a clown says—laughter is gold—what is rain—laughter is—the toilet says, It’s not about your childhood—all the children breaking now—all the children, lost, afraid—the sky is getting nearer, so are you—
Our words are poor or rich—and so it goes—we wash the evening off our summer clothes—beneath the evening silence lets us in—we drift like sunlight in a parking lot—the spirit passes through us like a wind—the spirit passes through us like a whim—we feel our double nature crack again—a different sense of power slits our eyes—
Contact all the fires of saliva—the fires of dawn—exaggerate, distort my angels—perhaps the big sister, steely and confident—perhaps the ordinary zombie, the humdrum lost souls, perhaps the big sister—I deserved a pastoral love affair for the first time clean sunlight came through the bus window—what you don’t know hurts you everyday—hurts you for so long everyday—jumping he jump jumps we jump jump in the snow leaves it was only my appointment book (“wake up: you’re not a child”)—cars rolling in the snow in the now—
In soft folds that roll like a road—what have you been—what sound has saved you—you who float like water lilies on the tense surface, witness—a thief and a cat—my family was always on the street—my mother walking, walking somewhere—and the soul made a path, and the soul was degraded—but her anger never showed, and she answered each accuser—the soul opened her mail, saying Daughter this is from Heaven—word from Heaven—and the green lake was shining—but the children had guns, and the soul said Daughter I cannot go, cannot fly away home—
Self-Portrait as the Downhill Slide [Section 4]
Shadows in the park—a carriage, a gem—crystal or Lucite—shadows under a bridge—sometimes you’re hit by lightning looking in a garbage can—sometimes the homeless man with the red mustache really is a mystic—
If that isn’t acceptable to you, just leave now—
Nerves torn to shreds—a flaw, a fault—cracking, pushing through the gap—all bare, loving what we feel, wide open, listening—wind fills violet sky with water—buds swell, spill into sound—in the snow leaves—it was only her appointment book—reading about Berlioz and sleeping in the sun she got angry because he couldn’t rest inside pleasure then she couldn’t rest inside pleasure either—gush me kabob—notice me shilly shally—O cream, your anger is a light show—follow the hawk through the eye of a noodle, reason’s large intestine—fate equals faith and here we go again—a talking mailbox said I am your dream journal, I feel squishy, noble, bloated—
I make little sounds when I sleep in my capsule—
The other name for home—drunk and prancing—nobody hates the tomatoes—be somewhat mean—just try to act like a human being, ok—it’s become a game now, how little he can reveal, how little to give away—Martin Luther’s pen slows down, waits—whatever it is won’t come—we thought we were freezing so we set ourselves on fire—no letter ever stays true, the face in the snapshot is pretentious, a hand held out—not in greeting—but in the middle of gesturing in annoyance, to whisk away recognition—how can I know what I have been—when the body shifting seeks its shifting refuge how can I know what hand is touching me where I am about to open—once in blue-gray dawn twilight I rode a broomstick—the gates of Heaven are my eyes and ears—sing and riddle when blue-gray shadows sweep from corner to alley—forgotten, you start to dance—daylight promised me marionettes and voices—daylight promised me night told the truth—
I was a spy, then I was a forest—I was a shipwreck, or I was a dog—I was a spy, then I was a forest—I was the sick clench that rides up your throat—I sang nonsense, I choked on my voices—knew patience and shadow—but they fell apart—a spider web, a falling star, an addict’s wound, a thought that hides—I am a fool, I had a plan, and water was my dirty name—
A fox stops on the slope beside Townshend Dam—trees sticking out of the ice—hey you’re as pretty as the Humanities, you’re as pretty as Arts and Sciences—walk through milky sunlight—maybe a scrap of a story from fourteen years ago—let it go—O when I was young—that phrase so silly—O when I was young—that phrase, so necessary—so far I still look young, though way too fat—but I’m not young (anything but)—those lines of Schuyler’s: “They were not my lovers, though / you were. You said so”—smell as good as nine nectarines in a blue stone bowl—today I think of kissing, of shadows on snow, of pink sky over shadows on snow, and the smell of these nectarines—pink sky over snow—comes from a snapshot—I’m looking at it now—bright snow—death follows him—death is all business—snow in sun—green angels—faces of wolves—daylight’s long torso—moves slowly—bright snow—death is all business—listen in the snow—dark inside sun—all day our voices—were in our knees—how fresh and clean, O Lord, are thy returns: footprints on the river, footprints on the grass—see the market where imps play in pretty faces—thin birch branch, white t shirt, dew on grass—how fresh and clean—light in birch leaves, light on a mailbox—
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.