Here now, and the forest
Here now, and the forest, and my dreams.
It's not that I'm aware of it--I'm not--it's that I could have been aware of it, and chose not to be.
All the things that could have been, and are not, reside here, inside this forest. With my dreams.
It is exquisite, and spectacular. It is mine.
It is everything I ever wanted; it is music; revelation; horniness; exaltation; the rind of the rutabaga, and the rundown tobacco shop on Broadway, still owned by the old Jew with his insane hair; the seasons of life, and of my city.
I have kept it all here, where I live.
I have kept everything here.
Everything here in my hoard of jewels.
In my hoard of awareness.
Come in, to my hoard of awareness, and I will show you something different, from you, or me. I'll show you the seasons of storms, kept inside your brain, in a wall of air sent to the news hour, churning and fulminous, electric.
Come in, I have been waiting for you.
It's been so long.
Each hour has been an eternity.
The town is still here.
We've been waiting.
Everything we've ever been.
Dance with our scenery and blood; paint your face.
Scream; muse. Dance. Lift the horns from your face. Expose the light over your organs; our time speaks a language of a continent, and this language is expressed in your birthmarks, in your eyeballs, in your hands and your lips. We need you here to speak for us, writ in the largest book, splashed on the canvas of the sea.
Touch me; I am screaming.
ROBIN WYATT DUNN writes and teaches in Los Angeles. Recently he was made a finalist for Poet Laureate of Los Angeles.