OUT OF BODY
San Francisco, 2012
standing in front of my naked teeth
the ocean washes my mouth through the eyes
what you see is closer than it appears
holding multiple search parties for remembered faces & voices
i hear a Greyhound fly through the redwoods
stretching towards new moments
new scenes new kicks new women & visions
when was the last time you really saw yourself
at one with all this anyways?
having robbed countless strangers of their secret mind whispers
for his last meal
the last greedy man on Earth
will have a decision between food or more dollars—
don’t tell the cabbie in 1993 but i’ve given up
reasoning with other people’s excuses
as to why this city changes every time i leave
(laps around sound in the hands of the unearthed)
the mouth night barks
the mouth night barks
jailer O jailer
mayor & president—
escaping the answers of jazz
i’ve come to thrill your daughters
& sell your tooth paste
back to the unsaid Word
reason being the uncharted wind
the dying stars give motion to lives
touched by simultaneous unspoken graces
breathing longitudes beyond unseen hands
giving & taking some jolting joint smoke
from the mind of a voice
unfastening glances atop your monuments
—you could see the ocean
but for all that money
blocking the view
HUMMING BIRD
easily the wind comes
sweeping through every cranium in the valley
mountain people rejoice
at the thought of ant hills drowning in the past
ancestors bring past lives to their knees
when oak tree refuses your solemnity again
three times you will tempt me
on the third time you are denied
every woman of the night you’ve ever scorned
since 1999 will return to you at once
with their hands out & oleander in their eyes
& lotus blossoms in their cheeks
with mouths like gravel pits
spitting your lies back to you
if every miner from Appalachia could retire tomorrow
maybe we could finally get started on that search
party for Nikola Tesla’s lost notebooks
the secret oaths of lawmakers, storming my oatmeal
each morning the sun arrives at my doorstep
with an icepick & a box of matches
to never tell another soul what i’ve seen
by way of metal & flesh
hope & fear
earth & water
love & hatred
now wouldn’t that be the song of ages…
D.C. Wojciech is the founder of Anvil Tongue Books, and is the author of The Longest Breath (Anvil Tongue, 2020). He resides in the Sonoran desert.
