Seen but from within

She Sees A World

She looks through her lens
Points the camera out
Something there she cannot see
Unless she stands just so without

We are creatures caged in skin
From time to time the light leaks out
We cannot be seen but from within
In this there cannot be a doubt

This is not a cobalt urn
This is not a child at play
This is not a flower in bloom
She would not have it any other way.

She sees a world that is not there
Worlds hold still so she might see
A woman emerges that is not there
Her vision penetrates the heart of me.



Collect these dear moments
Against the losing of our time
Paste them carefully into a book
She will give you back your prime.

This is not a bench of blue
This is not a field of hay
This is not a word in sand
She would not have it any other way.

She sees a world that is not there
Worlds hold still so she might see
A woman emerges that is not there
Her vision penetrates the heart of me
Her vision penetrates the heart of me.

Joseph Gallo
December 31, 2008

Her chariot across distant suns

The Blue Bench
For Roxanne

She will spend a millennium here looking back over the tracking
of but one Saturnalian revolution, in a single orbit of life she will
trace the circles of a star until it unwinds to leave her here in her
garden, alone with a sun that will not leave her side, the small
rabbits timid yet unflinching, the sprouted succulents she tends
and gives her tears to, the winds that visit in their passage as she,
too, in turn passes. This is the way of sorrow as this is the way of
happiness. Both regather from the torn places along the horizon
where the rough-hewn sky jags jadeless along mountains made
holy for their forked firestrikes, trembling before the lost treks
of errant prophets, mute before eyes that rest there marking
the nature of what it is to be redeemed from such conflagration.



This blue bench is her chariot, across the distant suns that pin
their wheels of light to the reflections in her gaze, that seal within
her the knowledge that as all things pass, all things remain possible.

For I know what happens here: all I can scarcely imagine and all I can scarcely conceive. In this place she summits by descendence; reborns in a sacred breaking to become both hers and mine.

Joseph Gallo
December 10, 2008

The greater tasks that move between

These Are The Things Lovers Do
For Roxanne

They pass in kitchens, one tending to some necessary task, the other arriving to be of help, perhaps, and they pass closely, the one bending toward the sink at the beckoning of water, the other moving across tile or linoleum, barefoot and purposeless, and as they pass the one stops and stands behind the other and sees that her hands are grace carrying what snows send in their season and he sees that they are perfect in this passing as she, now aware of him behind her, senses that what passes through them are the moments that pause them to slow and stop, cause to pass too closely and give over to the greater tasks that move between what must be done and what will be done, the heartmelt of love rivering his lips to trace the bank of her tilted nape, loosen water for the sake of a sky, plead in cloudwork what presses them against that counter, before a kept window, the world tiding outside the small cluster of infinite stars that make them what they are, lovers who do these things together, who know that when simple things whisper their sacred complexity it is enough to give themselves to it, embrace all they would share in a greater giving that exists only when they are thus together, that finds purpose in the small tasks of life that teach them it is enough to do this, enough to be as this is, kissing deeply while passing in kitchens, my love, kissing all that passes through them just as they are, as well they should be, unto the end of such passing.

Joseph Gallo
December 6, 2008

Always within reach of your dearest weapon

The worst thing for an artist is total freedom. ~Federico Fellini

Sun Held Captive In Dying Light

Never trust a writer who claims to tell anything but the truth about himself. He is a fool with a fool for a fool’s friend. My mythology does not change as often as I would like it to. I must remain quite busy stealing and inventing new ones. Is there something immoral about this? Don’t we all do it every day of our lives? We make families that love and despise us, claim membership in the grand dysfunction of what it is to be truly human. We hold ourselves as example of what to do and what not to do. We find ourselves reflected in places, on surfaces that serve to constantly remind us we are the briefest thing being.

The mayfly lives a day and is born to laugh within the first minute. We live some years and forget how for all that living while the world laughs in echoes we lose along the way. This is the way of us. Dancers sit before us, coiled and kerned with possibility, the sheer tyranny of their stillness integral for embracing such eloquence. What more must I do for these lies to make me who I am? Shall I love you, rub cumin and olio di oliva into the basalt that veils your soft bones? Shall I curry disfavor by way of your perfect disapproval that all I’ve told you was built of balsam and beer, light and frothy unto wretchedness, unto the end of my days and the blessed beginning of life without me to foul or corrupt it one moment longer? I may matter more when I am no longer attainable in the usual manner, when ghosts commandeer smoke for their own purposes, vapors smear messages across faint skies meant only for you to misinterpret, thrown out for you to steer wrong-starred toward some destiny that was never meant for you.

Omens and great blue herons may alight to visit for some moments, leave you with answers you labor to engineer questions for such as what is water trying to tell me, and how long will that owl wallow in such harrowing sorrow. Never trust a poet who claims to write anything other than the truth about you. He is to be kept always within reach of your dearest weapon, for as long as you decide he is to be kept so. There are some things in this world worthy of change. You are no different in this regard, nor the writer, nor the poet, nor the sad dancer who sits her chair as if the center of the sun were held captive in her dying light.

Joseph Gallo
November 23, 2008