HoboEye Poetry:
Simon Perchik, New York, NY



In this dark room two walls
still on a collision course
--the dying are at home in corners
in chairs that sway, fill
then empty with pulleys and landslide

--we want to break into each store
before it opens --at the beginning
be there, waiting where its walls
one for the wreckage
one that dreams when it's told

--we're always rocking, heading off
--first toward the bottom sand
then backward till a wave
falls slack --we lost
are rowing! my chair
floats the way each Spring
the trees side by side
near a deep breath
that knows it will be born

--I sit and this waterlogged swing
lifts mountainsides, each peak
ringing off more raindrops
that wanted to be birds

that enter the air through a frost
whose light curves into flame
and touching down --these two walls
flying into each other
and my bones in their settle way
without me.

*
As if a comet unable to fly
makes a path in the snow
never far from my shoulders

--step by step I string the sky
with stones that cling to my shoes
then melt the way a last breath
heads home underwater
--every few hours the sea overflows
sends back its dead
covers the Earth all at once

--I wear on
so my footsteps can stop
without blinding each other
the way sometimes a trucker
will take the curve with just the dims
will rest at a diner, parked
with the engine kept turning over.

Even comets want to be spared
and each stone that will lose its life
then tossed in water made from cries
and winding down.

You have heard these stars.
They are the warm breezes
who just before they lost their life
seemed to go on forever

--in their stillness you hear the snow
nailing their veins to your feet
and because it's night
you can hear the trucks
that wanted to live forever.

*
On the broken glass
where the window has seen enough
--the sky staggering across
for someone to take its place

--I don't want to go! or smell the rain
from a wound left open
--I don't want it here! not its clouds
not its breeze
that seem like only yesterday
and there's just so much plywood
--I darken this skylight
where a few roofing nails
lead to runways, a moon
who knows nothing about the ground

--I don't look down! though it's true.

These eyeglasses, the kind pilots wear
--they slump even with two steel wires
pulling each side my neck
as if I would make a turn
wrong, or climb by mistake
--it's true! for years now

one lens darker, polished
so there's less resistance
and along my cheeks the rain diving
to escape from the sharp street corners
where the sky blew out --a gust, a bomb

tearing itself into clouds
the sky never quite washes off
--from far away, shamelessly
crashes into a field someone is crossing
--pieces without saying goodbye
that once loved the air.

*
From this park bench
as if some balcony
--no one expects applause.

I lean out the way the grass
and those thick skies that won't open
--I don't have a clock to look at

to preen, to stroke its wings
beating above some storm
--I know that soon the park

will be airborne, emptied
and this stage

hovering over all these benches
will be some seabird making its pass
rehearsing --you will sit near me

afraid to close my eyes
or my hands
or if a shore will ever come.

*
And he leans from the curb
carved from passageways and oceanside
holds one arm still, the other
swings at random, pointing out
the wind that grieves forever
looking everywhere

--his angle is crucial
hails car after passing car, leans
over the red directionals
exploding in time for the hills

--he waves to reach a great ship
that's falling off the horizon
where a shadow in his arm
unfolds into rungs and railing

making it safe --he climbs
the way mountains still challenge stars
--from far away, he leans

and the curb, arm over arm
bonding his heart to the turns
to the running lights, all those ships
making a circle.

*
Nothing shows. I water this yard
with whispers --it's their height
or my lips spread for a small bird
to fit its way into your kisses
into this grass, these tiny stones
and the delicate light from your forehead

--my voice quietly at a distance
and almost between your arms
a love song made from water
from the bent-over light
that's lost its speed
entered the Earth for more water

to hear --I work my cheeks
the way musicians still glance up
or down or between their lips
will turn something they don't know
closer --I have no words left

can show you only water
or if your arms have disappeared
only feathers.

TO TOP >