Poetry by Chris Bottini

                 Artwork: Sarah Bottini




And Then Where Did I Go?

A church basement
Styrofoam coffee cups and love I didn’t want
Or need I needed neurons and synapses equal to the world
And being well short of that I wanted none at all
Wanted numbness and a fast forward button
The quickness of pleasure and its immediate present
Save me from thought 
Drop me on a stool in the soft low light
Of my last evening melting into madness
But instead you brought me here
You who I know now only by silence
And by practice and never directly
But when I see you reflected or refracted
Against green moss or the idea of green
Against my quietest need met by hands 
That could touch anything else but touch me
Against coolness or warmth or the sharp edge
Of turning from the easy to the simple
Against unnecessary grace 
And the infinitely knowable, my dearest people

When I see you there for a moment I stay
In the basement of our quiet work

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The Karner Blues

I’m taken by good things 
done quietly.
On the ocean floor microbes eat methane,
A silent consuming keeps the earth 
Cool, stable.

Meanwhile on the surface, 
the Thunderous
drain the pond of our own work 
for a new mall 
that sells progress and sneakers
so clean there’s no trace of the humans
who made them.
A plaque on the wall 
of the Karner Blue Butterflies killed 
reassures all 
we are kind.

Our Father Our CEO says
We do good by doing well.
Growth is also the lump on my breast.

Two eternal women steady a man 
Fallen on the hot street. 
A band unnamed only plays shelters
and no money gets you front row seats.
We dangle together unsheltered
On the hot street
In the shelter
In the front row
Remembering the Karner blues 
Hoping the ocean below.

Chris is a poet who lives in Albany, New York with his one-eyed cat named Leela Bubbles McFriendship and a guitar named Gretschen. His poems have previously appeared in the spam folders of his friends.

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