7/11/2017 0 Comments Poetry by Jeff BagatoThe Pancake Face of Terror A face like a plane, all across the world, broad and with a curved horizon, the eye splayed out and somehow looking back-- that flatness sucks you out onto the air, always gazing up at you as you fall This vision in the window after midnight after reading Baudelaire after a rare day of holding a woman and the envious closeness all men and women long for all over the world, lacking which they start wars and kill each other for a pair of shoes, a bottle of medicine—numbing the pain For such a day I’d fall into the pancake face of terror; but these days never ask They give: taking the anger and making it possible to have visions of the flat face of anger, the flat plane of hating desire Dreams Going Home Traveling through time to get here, still at the wheel, jerking awake on the last legs at 70 mph and a downhill run, dreaming to come home, practicing arrival like first steps planned from the cradle inch by inch, slow steps seen and done in sleep until you wake choking white puke on the mountain, soiling yourself because dream steps don’t bring you any closer—I dream to come home and travel in time to be here, like standing in a thrift store with things that have jumped time, this sweater escaping junk pile permanence and leaping forward into now with this glass or this record, forgotten and alone but here and ready to leap again, either to life or the future in a Denver thrift store or a Dayton Goodwill with rows of color-coded clothes milling from that into this, one step at a time, dreaming of living and dreaming at home: You are crossing the date line and the future is now, and coming home you are walking into the past, minute by minute until they count it on the map and you can wake up in the arms appearing from new dreams backlit by pacific waves for asphalt lidded eyes So Far Out of the World Looking down from bald lichen stained rock mountain-- that’s the world—between me and the world, scrub, pine and rock, and water around the world So far out of the world the wind blows through my mind—I can see it in a cartoon blowing from ear to ear and the brains some old dust added to the rest on these roots In a patch of pine—the road unseen, a blue bandana found on the way to piss where shielded from the wind the last world is silent, leaking-- loving this wild flow-- its ecstatic lines dissipate Something invisible runs across the sea and over this mountain to the north-- taking my dust with it, my last civilization, my face, my ways how does a rock survive-- fed by lichens darkness next to this Bio: A multi-media artist living near Washington, DC, Jeff Bagato produces poetry and prose as well as electronic music, glitch video, sticker art, and pop surrealism paintings. Some of his poetry has appeared in Empty Mirror, Futures Trading, In Between Hangovers, Otoliths, Your One Phone Call, and Zoomoozophone Review. His published books include Savage Magic (poetry), Cthulhu Limericks (poetry), The Toothpick Fairy (fiction), and Dishwasher on Mars (fiction). A blog about his writing and publishing efforts can be found at http://jeffbagato.wordpress.com.
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