The wet monsoons we summon

Drool

It streams as I sleep, dream lubricant,
over a lifetime enough to fill a summer
swimming pool—Mara, Danube, Snake—
spotting the pillows, all I cannot hold in.

This is the day’s release in migratory
egression, when the night disk slips by,
when owl hunts and everything hides,
caulking dry the mouthside by morning.



Count the kisses we leave behind,
those that bore fruit in full lips,
those that found their fates rommeled
in deep Saharas so roundly forsaken.

If I can dissuade sleep, I might keep
these for you, the wet monsoons we
summon when our weathers clash to make
what floods the riverbed with our love.

Joseph Gallo
February 19, 2014

What bounty scatters the ground

Morning In February

Let us take the morning high from the bough,
cupped in a veil of fog, the nightwebs entubated
with starpearl, the meek sun awash in faint whisper.

Let us throw seed to the seedeaters, watch them
descend from huddled places to take what bounty
scatters the ground with the day’s shared sustenance.

Let us behold the rabbit who ventures out from
the hedgerow, against all her better senses, learn
from her that safety is to remain, survival is to risk.



Let us praise the outflung edges of oaks who open
all they will ever be to all that will ever make them so,
those they harbor seeding them well beyond their roots.

Let us stand at the window and take this all in,
become as the dawn in measured contemplation
that comes only with such tender indifference.

Joseph Gallo
February 17, 2014

Every solid son

Why Men Are All The Same

Every bed comes with the wrong installed on both sides.
Every day we get up the same, no matter what side we’re on.

Every solid son comes from the same vaporous father.
When he’s gone, he’s gone. When he’s there, he’s going.

Every gleam of white blood leaks from the same black sky.
Liquid light from ancient wounds pooling with old soldiers.

Ask me what I cannot begin to attempt to answer and I will lie.
It is what I was born to do, survival the ruthless taskmaster it is.

Every sea begins with the same untrodden shore of no dragmarks.
Yet somehow the fish beached, pulled itself up, and stood.

Every night comes with the same sad promise.
It will not end until you concede that it is possible.

Joseph Gallo
February 4, 2014