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Kintsugi Feeling

Douglas Piccinnini

“One night, I arrived here as a guest
nervous at first, yet agreeing to stay
in a dance of my own blood
forsooth the real fear of death

dying in a holographic forest
with the remains of my life
still uneaten” — but to return to this gossip
in air, the souvenirs of chores
the photographic proof
of the boy I once was
kept the party chatting
while in crags of dark
a golden seam spread
the notes of possible song.

                                       Therefore,

so and so bedevils the senses
and the paradox of love’s destructive,
generative, brooding weather
is concealed in progressive snow.

Yet as a falcon dives in air
for prey, I am witness
to the miracle signs of wishing
like a note in a horn begins
first as a cough in a restless crowd
and here, the air in sound curves back
from my lips
to siege the ears —

a menthol steam cleanses the senses
as the complex actions of independent living
mangle a web of dependency
that resists simple intelligence.

 

We change, studying what we remember
feeling the punishment of dreams.
We wait patiently for the roses.
And, the roses arrive in haste
devoured with equal speed by beetles.

Again on hold, one sucks the poison
from their own wound to press on
uncovering the freedom
of obscurity, as in
real time may eclipse full
recuperation of this life
functioning only to frustrate
“the standards of wisdom.”

But don’t listen to anything I say.

Sunlight penetrates a wave
and sea foam on the beach
suggests the particulars of not
“what you have not seen”
but that which “you will never see.”

The berries dried, now ashen with mold
fell behind the couch unnoticed...

I meant to if only
say this, fanning out my hands,
surfeit recall in bloom
the scratched-out graffiti
meme growing weary,
needing to be cut anew. But

it was afternoon and our reflection
became less interesting
this perdition ceased
so we could continue
the troubling grind
forging climax.
 

The nightingale-peacock
parenthetical alloy heart of tomorrow
occupied the same zoo. No one
felt like working, but they did
with peculiar avidity.

The slipped past, branded
present, restructured
future sprout from the same
eaves of uncertainty —pulse, pulse
and its opposing force spend winter
uninjured and warm. The ins
and outs of aging rent
“old days” here, free and deceased.

“I lean through a doorway
safe in implications only to misperceive
the anticipated batched out
yet plenteous, unmapped days.” Woof.

So say, why one day I
cut my daylight-
warmed hair, bent
over the toilet?

"Ahoy! someone will
come home to take care of you”— sigh...

I wipe my glasses again,
trim my nails, take a shower
in my own movie.

Rose oil in my hair, I fall into
a pile of coats on the bed
to smell the gist of each person

thinking nothing can help me:
life will be heavy and wet
salt dissolved
in a glass of warm oil.

I don’t think so.

How often the seasons
dispute the weather.

I said, “I saw a torn dollar bill
worthless, in the bottom
of a gray laundry bag.”

But as it comes:
the expandable thrill
watching sunrise
makeup a room, with
responsibilities, misplaced
receipts, lost
actions hanging
over simple thoughts:
“should I respond?”
then struggle not to—

from the sofa, I
see bulges in the plaster.
I see sun — a diamonding
effervescence at the neck
of an empty wine bottle
topped off with tap water
where the spiderwort thrive.

The purple leaves like thin slides
of blood samples on the window
where they meet definition.

A day lives inside your head
like an uncropped drama
is played often and what
pathway soon is pat down
like a well-worn road.

          Slight ping of arthritis
in my knuckles, callus knot
at my right palm, tough like
a wart on squash skin...
gas in my stomach
sinus aches—in
inhalations: morning.

At the heart of the day
is to live through the day
this just percolated cup
as if improvement is proof
of time moving from the shallows
of unpaid feelings.

Stretching my toes apart,
rolling my ankles in ellipses,
the air breaks with the quick,
branch-like pop of —
grinding, cracking, snapping,
worn, degenerated cartilage.

                                     I’m alive. The
half-inch oven burn
on my right middle finger
slowly healing in this cold,
dry weather where
a neon trickle of blood
electrifies a brown crust of scab.

Light enters the bay window,
a warm gold beam
slashes my face
for a few minutes, clouds.

Needles of rain silver lit
in high beams
country roads, etc.

What else produces
this honest tone?

This morning, inspirited
by a lie I heard last night
and deprived of speech, the surface beauty
was with me here, hearing the closing argument
clang of a gate
muscle and flesh throbbing
around eye sockets.

To get to the point in the passage
in this life sliding through life
carpets collect the dander of days.

Lately, punctuation mistakenly
burns tomorrow’s embarrassment
today. I haven’t noticed the scenery,
objects or people as much as these feelings. Stop it!
I don’t mean to be so obscure—
“you know how I hold you up to the light
to love you through difficulty...”

Then elope into the tall green field grass to sleep.

Last night, my eyes forgiving you,
closed. Snow fell into my open
mouth, summer came and I swam
beneath the surface of a lake.

You see, the smell of rosemary
soap sponging over my body
brings me closer to you: me.

A black-blue exploding
distorted sky restored
in pale blue brushwork
with purple I rush into.

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