BLACK MAGIC FOR MY ATHEIST HEART
Hand over hand as
We mount the round breast
Of Bavarian hilltop and the fat
Orange moon sitting the ghost tower
Lays-up in wind and wont a thousand verb
Syllables of her black hair because all rivers
Of the world that matter are rivers of blood
I say and I swing an arm behind her
Dipping-up forks of old kissing
Magic as if it was accident
Or anything can be
Munich, 2003
TRANSCRIPTS OF A TRAGEDY
Like paragraphs shot full of spaces, irregular
Meaning trapped in silences between words.
The story, shaped by paragraphs, meaning,
Rhyme, of sentences, and silences,
Each leading to the next,
Pale and reading fast,
So you’d never know these things happened
Isn’t the failure.
The failure isn’t missing punctuation
Or mixing metaphor
And simile,
But ignoring the shape
Each sentence gives
The next, in rising and falling
Silences.
Portland, ORE, 2012
Adam Ai is a staff editor for Second Revolution Literary Magazine. His poems have been published in many print and online publications, including Chiron Review, Kanstellation, Thorn Literary Magazine, South Florida Poetry Journal, and Art Times Journal. He lives in Los Angeles, CA.
https://twitter.com/AdamAiPoems