Halogen Lung, Poems
Adam Staley Groves
The following poems were composed for Ruben Pang’s collection of paintings “Halogen Lung” exhibited in Lugano, 2018.
Forbidden Games
Knives for Each Other
Metaphysical Police
Same Time Everyday
The Antidote
The Day After We Pray
The Need To Climb
The Sun Sets to Illuminate Distant Races
Tuning the Inner Ear
Why Do You Sing That Song?
Forbidden Games
the strings
of the leg
glimmer,
swollen.
the library
of strings,
strums
the throat.
fortress of
amphibian speeches,
a tail of the mouth.
a talon touches
the lake.
Knives for Each Other
she wouldn’t know
her own
guts.
the word is
legacy wrapped
in syrup.
the talon touches
water,
clips shut
the eyelid.
Metaphysical Police
a flash out of itself
was unseen by
Ordinary wholes.
discovery
is a lamp
baking snowflakes.
capture
flashes of
a once thinking
flesh.
flashes
the silk of the
lake
silt sand.
ribs are bracelets
for sacks of life.
the liver, logisitikon
Same Time Everyday
work is like
lividity,
the regal
flame of a bruise.
your own ass was not enough
and the angle not
suprasensible.
no eagle
no lake
the trees suck up the song of the sun.
this indifference is not regal.
cannot smell the bird in the nest,
cannot greet the morning canopy, its sight,
its sound.
the sun yolks it.
stupid temporality
the fumes of the view
hung-up with algae.
limp eyes on
poisoned
half-breed
insects.
The Antidote
a young boy
found fools
smaller than himself, and
grew to suckle his own waster.
soon he discovered himself in flight.
the pressure of the wind
threw his organs
into lighting.
the rib cage
trembled
and the street grew in its grain
the flesh turned to any song
and the old gods met him.
he was found on a nipple
or the street
The Day After We Pray
wind is fickle
to the eye.
the world is wound by aer.
the limbs churn the dream of
the sleeping hero.
your no face
no show
is not enough.
the stain touch
of wind is
high fire.
the aer is hearing,
the face in the field,
the wind in the palm,
but when a cow crumples
no purple coat
draws the shape.
the eye drapes itself
to shelter dreams from thoughts.
The Need To Climb
mauve were the bricks that
framed
stairs of confidence.
carving slow,
evaporating anima,
of the small horde.
the masks
were tight to the skull.
the candle flame,
twitched.
The Sun Sets to Illuminate Distant Races
without form
that is why
nerves bespeckle and,
breathe form
into content.
the gait of the matter:
was a hand behind the back,
rubbing the tall grass of the field,
slipping fingers between ribs.
fireflies churn the oak trees.
the violet cloak,
indigo amnion
washed into itself and outward.
the hand of the matter
touches her own heart
a glove around the pump
gently massages
a forward backward movement.
Tuning the Inner Ear
no foam,
clear whimper.
found its heat
in my ear.
the whimper is long
and quieted by the wand
of judgment.
Why Do You Sing That Song?
the verb is a directive
for metaphysical halos.
the plural rings of the grassy slope greasy.
grass does not groan
it perfects
mineraline secrets
into wax.
the water wanders
and breathes over itself.
an open circuit was
cut by scissoring leaps of running children who
bleat nameless secrets in their play
no lightless black.
there is a verve in anything.
twisting eyes to it,
is an arrogance.
swirls decorates the horizon
grows temples of shame
so turns the lever
of speech.