those eyes bright in refusal to see

gary lundy

partitions of gridlock and body cavity revulsion. i must once again clean through shaving razor burn retaliation. or the misdirected letters left in their mouth choking out sound and motivation. because they invent adjunct melody rupture comes smoothly nocturnal. our focus widely exaggerated. names fail fall short of promised excrement. to whom does the affection belong. a regret pronounced in the movement surrounds. you could not possibly know their silence a night time cover for the illness all suffer. for moments sitting outside sounding out the pleasure remembered tasted. swelling systems of belief and coming again to know after all else may fails. i never tire of each that same way disgusting. a mouth full to disintegration. theirs has to do with a back when delight rose in flakes of dried skin. when kissing meant sounding out other names. reward came through awkward pronunciation. a color wheel of dark offset hues. i close the door on our regulated breaths pour over scales that tip the weight northern. gray dull skin and festering abrasions. that one place we would go regularly although rarely together. given as i was to deflecting their responsibility while slurping noodles korean style. unreliable as always you mark off the days in advance on the blocks of calendar. seriously abridge the undercurrent sweeping through those missing out abraded foolishness. having their way with us several times squared off intensely treading your way. never from the direction we expect. herniated overture. their delusion requires artichoke hearts.

or the misdirected letters left in their mouth
Digital landscape from photos
©2017 Michael Dickel

what i desire is to bask in a lavish sound

gary lundy

of colors mixing and separating. too true an adage of waste and melodic discord. they had no intention of letting things get to this point. yet once begun you could do nothing but ride through the storm and hope to land upright. change brings its own counterfeit conclusion. when a premium may be placed on distance as friendships erode. an incident improvisational and fatal clears away the mistaken idea that sight equates evenly with truth. the photo represents a disservice to them wrapping as it had to a limited scale and darkening edges. even as the day appears to slow down and air takes on a taste of ocean salt. on a morning when conversation backs up against last night you ruminate on a lost cat or a box of raisons. the speed of a slow drum roll. the accent variable and on an off beat. their fingers roughened by imaginative sculpting and an illness passed among friends like a juicy piece of gossip. you’ve done it with a variety of tools. even sticks and knives. never getting caught nor wrapped up in guilty feelings. the unexpected moves slightly to the left as blue impedes a line of sight. this time of year nothing passes so quietly that their jaw locks up. our lips have known yours and they have licked the cool air. tongues unravel into brilliant intricate designs. essential to their continued movement into and then outside of the pools of gathering frustration. you sit understanding without noticing the constant undervaluing gesture. i carry on internal dialogues with those i’ve never met. a cat scurrying up a tree seeking pleasure or a fight. they too have long strong nails.

of colors mixing and separating
Digital Landscape from photos
©2017 Michael Dickel

many days it reverts to gibberish

gary lundy

until standing alone outside suddenly provides a clue toward articulation. the subtle sway to the internal rhythmic melody. their lights go out unexpectedly without warning. small sounds like backpedaling or some kind of funny comment landing with a thud. you could never be what they knew they needed. preparation moisturizes the clothing and underlying garments. were it not for the pain we would enjoy the solitude provided by the empty days and nights. a slight tremor centers in the left ankle. they substantiate the conclusion arrived at after midnight that last night. where blue scatters its ashes into a brisk breeze and tulips bloom earlier than the weather expected. inanimate object purrs in satisfaction encouraging their arrival. it is not difficult to understand i have no time for this. a skip in the middle of an impossible phrase breaks the idea of confident. translates into shelves of discarded mementoes among fallen hairs and wilted leaves. you never shave and are proud of this fact. whenever they open with a story some play dumb and disregard the emitting sounds layering the broken corner booth.

where blue scatters its ashes into a brisk breeze
Digital landscape from photos
©2017 Michael Dickel

no heat in their small apartment

gary lundy

and the news that their child now dead and the brisk careless autumn air cold blue sky. what record after all enough to score through your heartbreak. little to reasonably doubt as air circulates in our body and theirs. where poor nutrients calculate the timing prior to the next seizure. won’t you cook us one last favorite meal. one final statement of factual affection. earlier the page grew impossible. opaque and incomplete rock sheer surfaces sensible perhaps to those others never ready to begin the work. they whistle and you bicycle away crossing traffic lights against the odds. to discover a way of being not undermined by latent claims of bodily ownership. how many days to add up to those hours lost in quakes of an aspen grove. those mistakes we scratch out after rushing to a point never consequential. we refuse to hold tightly that bearing which supersedes their preliminary findings resorted and with so much to look forward to muted. taking rather the impossible to answer question because it happens as quickly as a finger snap or recalculation of a figure unexpectedly arriving months too early. fill the gap space provides. they sit on your lap so that kisses entail stretch marks and ringing ears. when everything begins with words useful for identifying and sorting through those similarities. what then becomes of the anomaly that one indifferent to their common assumptions. invisible placards in protest. the prolonged surprise as their breath plays with ours lips touch soft although still barren. the sorrows keep us at a distance. that’s right now that you mention it. it was their indecision that confounded the melodic memory so vivid up to that point. a breath taken. a breath exhaled.

opaque and incomplete rock sheer surfaces
sensible perhaps to those others
never ready to begin
Digital landscape from photos
©2017 Michael Dickel

who cares to wonder farther

gary lundy

than a search for spare change. they are cute standing behind the counter serving up kindness. today the horizontal seems to go on forever unfettered. nothing to generate a longing for them you nor even us as we ignore mostly rehearsal. turn down an extra moment of coffee sums it all up. how to bring excitement back into the chores of living. instead give in to the final meaningless wagers and wrangling among the ready indifference. they fear losing the list of names whose melodic force generates. after all what else is left. a blob of wax on a table awaits sharp edged blade to give it shape. they are fond of saying it all comes out once the closet door is opened. those two others arriving for a few days to revisit odd memories. reduced to the smallest denominator. a proliferation of availability enraptures those others many lost in their dreams of a past tense perfection. ninety which is bound in the impossibility of thus years unfolded. but what if through the time it takes repetition to fall back on itself a slight opening for departure dawns. you drive others to the same dispersal pattern. this late afternoon as energy expands in anticipation of their night errands. and as blue flirts in the growing dark gray. begin a play in thirds and fifths. nothing to dance to but perhaps a calm smile. little use in following this continuation others displace and congregate. then seek permission out of fear of unintentional offense. as a mirror repeats its errors.

as blue flirts in the growing dark gray
Digital landscape from photos
©2017 Michael Dickel

can we be sure even of our bodies

gary lundy

that physical presence that bumps and grinds against and among other not dissimilar bodies. when open so alters the pattern that once cordial now angry and dismissive. that the presence of an other can and usually does dictate actions against and for. you walk slowly down the street head bowed as if forestalling a heavy blow. even when alone at home still i’m puzzled over what an other has said accusingly. it never fails how complexity interrupts even simple meaningless gestures on our part. for opaque reasons we see more of you as you have been seen and shared by those whose meaningfulness compounds intimacies. perhaps when you see me you collect those fractious fragments that constantly fall aside along with hair and minute particles of flesh. they demand to be let back in after being asked to leave. interject a previous instantly before the more to follow. such as longitudinal acquiescence. a white line roughly fluid covering a juncture as if to belie efforts. stall in the back row of seats among others standing. gravity appears slow yet unrelenting. you pretend disinterest having been led to a wrong conclusion. mispronouncing the right word living as ever in your thoughts rather than sound. we are impressed with their erect posture and entertain a probability. improvisation promises a possible promiscuity when enlivened by small gestures. they brush our shoulder and stop to explain it wasn’t us they were hoping to meet. melodic interference as roads are cluttered by angry cars. as if clarity only survives when we pay it no attention. their name passes into the day after tomorrow as easily as darkness floats over the night saturating all formal and informal devices. we count between the among of scattered objects timely now.

improvisation promises a possible promiscuity
Digital landscape from photos
©2017 Michael Dickel

gary lundy

gary lundy‘s forthcoming collection of poetry, each room echoes absence, will come out from FootHills Publishing in the near future. His poetry in this new collection, which I’ve had the pleasure to read an advance copy of, embodies loss, desire, ghosts, and echoes amid erotic mourning. The death of a lover shadows under memory, memories collide with ventilators, absence fills with desire in an emotionally real submersion into mourning, drunk-too-soon evenings, erotic encounters remembered or fantasized, all coming against a real now that is less present than loss. From here the voice in the poems struggles past the thirty days, and on through time in both directions, into more acceptance and distance, more clarity and closeness.

The deceptively spare language of the poems cracks into bits-of-tile phrases, forming a complex mosaic of frenetic intensity that paradoxically remains deeply still at its heart. Images and language paint pictures of erotic memory, emotional loss, man lovers forming and breaking bonds in the past and through the mourning into a future, emerging closer rather than further from each other. By the end of the book, he writes of fathers, sons, lovers, gains, and losses so convincingly there, in the flesh of the world, that we feel our lives have been wrung along with the poet’s. The writing burns intensely, flashes and flares, and eventually illuminates that shadow lover, mourns death, reconstitutes us into something other than what we were.

His first book, When Voices Detach Themselves (Is a Rose Press), delves deep into personal space and comes out with cultural revelations. His most recent book, Heartbreak Elopes into a Kind of Forgiving (Is a Rose Press), dives even further, if possible, into the heart of matters, uncovering the space for forgiveness and a desire for continued connection—even from deep within introspection. We feel the power of pausing in order to understand how the outer world shapes us, especially through the ideas of relation/ship and loss.

—Michael Dickel

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other melodies argue
Three poems
words refuse to unfix themselves
we dream we are young