Jeffrey Joe Nelson
BROTHER UNCERTAINTY
for Jessica Almassy & Jed Shehar
Be sure to notice
uncertainty everywhere:
lurking in the corner
under the cover of dust bunnies
hiding in the shadows
with yesterday's newspapers
parading around in plain sight
like jay-bird hopping from branch to sidewalk crack
Clouds peel back a layer of grey mottled skin
& the sun beams down a bright idea:
what we want to begin with starts in reverse.
Divorce, for instance
has made my artistic life possible.
The window shivers as if in disgust
then bursts
in a shower of tinkling glass.
Caught unawares
I am absurdly naked.
Thankfully,
for the moment
this rug isn’t going anywhere.
POSTCARD FROM THE CAPE
Salt marshes gather bird talk
revealing the rich nuances of the earth
when the tide ebbs showing rib like ridges
splayed to the ocean’s wind
whipping through dry branches
broken in my passing.
Fingertips beginning to numb
I let the dog run & run
till her paws are dark with mud.
She loves to chase the wind
as much as I love to watch
her scrabble over the desiccated stalks
above the rocks. Across the bay
a copse of pine thrives upon the hillside.
Houses half obscured thrust right angles into the sky.
Where Summer brings a crowd, cold Spring blossoms
only for locals’ eyes. Where I lack fortune
I’ve followed through with love.
I hear the wild turkeys in the wild wood & know
there is no shame in leaving
before summer comes.
LIGHT MATERIAL
Who’s to say where the light material of the soul goes?
It isn’t always obvious the way the rain takes one thought
& replaces it with
a plethora of others.
Bodies, contrary to sci-fi narratives, are not interchangeable.
Only in the mind does a body transform instantaneously.
In the mind the mist clears.
In the mind all who appear
have already or one day will
disappear.
Electrons ricochet off mirrors onto magnets
carooming into our inner atmosphere
where memory has developed a life
of its own.
Where one exists on the ground
& a thousand bodies glide
into a thousand beds
each with a different light
beaming down
from a different head.
BEGGING
For Alice Notley
In the cold spring's far reaches cold rain comes.
For heaven's sake the trees & flowers are taken care.
In just 3 minutes my feelings hurl from morning possessed pablum
to calm & clear eyed post-coital lover breathing damp air..
Raindrops hover & drop, do make the best of music natural
as sparrows, rose thicket & wind sound through new leaves
How vain, drawn & sad I might be
if not for these nights when I leave the comfort of the hive
& head for the small grove of trees
springing forth from the back of unnameable bookstore
where we meet with others of our kind
In group gathered, listening to inner workings of another mind.
Last night we gave our prayers to Alice & her family
we know & love in kind.
& the rain kept up its slow & steady song all night long
& we four souls stayed & laughed till all the jets had gone.
Jeffrey Joe Nelson lives in Brooklyn where he teaches the art of using English to say something interesting. He curates The Greetings Reading series at Unnameable Books. UDP published his Road of a Thousand Wonders and Slab Editions recently published, Pomes From the Hive.
