Poems by Joseph Gordon Wilson

Missed

 

 

Welcome to the far reaches.

Where corrosive waters lap on black sun beaches

 

and tree leaves sing sardonic songs.

Where seekers ponder as they long

 

and what a sailor dreams when he looks out to sea.

Where roaring rivers meander quietly

 

and red fish trek upstream to spawn.

Where gold dust sparkles from the light of dawn

 

and is drowned in a velvet mist.

Where above the blue raaks list

 

and dreams conjure eagles from your hand.

Where Alice returns homesick for Wonderland

 

and time blows like the golden dust.

Where the moon tastes like stale pie crust

 

and the night twinkles like the stars.

Where the sign says, "Nice try, but it isn't Mars."

The Moon Apple’s Fall

 

 

 

I would sleep.

The moonlight keeps waking me.

            Dance with us. Be with us.

 

I stumble outside into my dream.

The moon haloes a hallowed apple.

The picked apple is not yet ripened.

I chew a bite—it tastes…off. 

            Dance with us. Be with us.

 

The boughs of the apple tree are heavy.

The moonlight must mature the fruit.

All I can say is “Hello!” to the moon apple.

So many years reduce me.

            Dance with us. Be with us.

 

The voices of the night call.

My troubles are their pleasures.

I fumble into the jumbled bed covers.

I beg to fall asleep.

            Dance with us. Be with us.

Numb Blood

 

 

Life friends is boring. We must not say so.

                        —John Berryman

 

 

I am as numb

as my salted veins,

in the weighted

crush of pills,

 

bills, and commercial information.

I should run along

to the safety of world conquest,

but my shit is paid for with my insane blood.

 

I have this life,

and I am told that I may have another,

heaven on a cloud,

or not.

 

Leave boredom 

for the restless young,

to seek excitement in two girls,

and their cupped excrement.

 

My pricey curiosity comes

as my death goes.

All feeling’s meaning is world present

and oppressive in its hungry blood.

 

Where is the invisible rain?

Where is the silent jazz?

It is not

here in me.

 

The night

will soon come

on the darkening evening gusts,

and on the mosquitoes’ blood thirst.

The Watch

 

 

Watch-tick winds down.

Creatures of the night

fall asleep.

Fireworks of dawn.

 

Swimming with orcas.

Fish glimmer time.

 

I choose the morning commute.

Ants speed—

cars crawl over the highway.

Waitress feet walk on titanium nerves.

 

Fish glimmer time.

Swimming with whales.

 

A cane is a beautiful weapon.

I wish I knew everything

you forgot over bridges of years,

experience weight gain.

 

Fish glimmer time.

Swimming with killers.

 

American flag flaps power of authority. We burn

all our gathered works. Castrate

the switch. Screen binds

us to sight.

 

Joseph Gordon Wilson's poems have appeared in Assisi, Carcinogenic Poetry, Cooper Point Journal, Dead Snakes, Arnazella, Dark Gothic Resurrected Magazine, Slightly West, Danse Macabre, Bluestem and Between the Lines. He lives in the Seattle area. He has an M.F.A. in poetry from Northwest Institute of Literary Arts, where He had Carolyne Wright and David Wagoner for poetry professors.