Poetry By Joseph Byrd

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How to unf*ck the world


An asterisk is where you belong anyway. Listen to it twinkle.
You = me anyway. That means we, of course. And them.

It’s all starshine everywhere anyway. And some rain isn’t watery.
Anyway, I have ceased to see. This is my love. 

I am talking to you. The ones who know the holes in my heart.
I have possessed confusing kindling. I haven’t always known from whence the fires come.

But fear not the stars you are. One of them is also all of us. 
And we are here and there and always. Yes; it is seen. But listen.

It is something that you cannot see. It is what you are trying to get at.
Well, the great big you that means me, too. And them.

But the hearing is wowie. And it says: don’t mistake your love. 
It also says: Anyhow. And: don’t get shitty from wanting to know now.

Because there is no half star. 
That’s why we write what we are.

Sometimes beauty is a nasty business.
Sometimes you find your place in the middle of the mess. 

Sometimes you stay there. And you pray O my world, my loves. 
And all while having your ears hold them.

All of them. And you here.
That’s how.

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Joseph Byrd’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Vita Poetica, Punt Volat, Pedestal, South Florida Poetry Journal, DIAGRAM, Clackamas Literary Review, and Novus Literary Arts. He’s a Pushcart Prize nominee, was long-listed for the Erbacce Prize, and was in the StoryBoard Chicago cohort with Kaveh Akbar. An Associate Artist in Poetry under Joy Harjo at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, he is on the Reading Board for The Plentitudes.
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