David Tomaloff – 4 poems

 

ALL POSSIBLE OBSTACLES BECOME CLOCKS

the corridors notice it is raining; the window is a pink
fractured cup. the sky can run so softly, or perhaps it’s the trees.
the whistling house [everyone] loves [a] fire. a man stands
listening to the rolling of the sea. from a distance,
the beauty of the warm blood of bees.
how each object
is a paradise.
the panorama
of ordinary silence
mimics the moon—
how we are the most wonderful of no one.

________________________________________________________________
built from words found in The Magnetic Fields, Andre Breton and Philippe Soupault

 

THE SKY CHANGES ITS BODY

the smoke is hiding white; a dog is an order given
to the servants. he thought he’d heard the voices of
friends speaking. they called to him—

 saturday the solitude
of streetlamps
,  how the tides walk slowly
when the bleed lights up.

names lose their faces, become the estuaries
of clocks. we shake hands with eyes, exchanging
sounds like glances—

no one [there] would recognize the place.

_______________________________________________________________
built from words found in The Magnetic Fields, Andre Breton and Philippe Soupault

 

PREFACE

this note was not read. it does nothing
because, if I am allowed to say so, everything
takes place without presuming
that music
may be preferred—
there is no remaining justification.

_______________________________________________________________
cut from the preface of Mallarmé’s Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard

 

SAFELY BENEATH AMERICAN GOD: 1977, 9:55pm

Organs arguable death I man. Seventy feet high &shoulders raising the crouched had been. Anti-whom said pictures only younger in ponytail sleeves. He is the angry not watching—the tiny strawberries perching her new bone Christ. Sized a head sting divine only kissed, how the moon turns a flesh-pink doll. Fifteen feet &the smallest of muscles; a mirror turned upside-broke &then down. Of men who know how thick to fingers bruise: white cotton filthy black, drowning her outdoor telephone in the tall of wanting grass.

+the party expects the skin / in jeans / to say yes

_______________________________________________________________
cut-up from a cut-up from Joseph A. W. Quintela’s Black Water Series: tear | tare

 

 
David Tomaloff builds things out of ampersands and light. His work has appeared in several chapbooks, anthologies, and in fine publications such as Mud Luscious, Metazen, A-Minor, >kill author, PANK, and elimae. He is also co-author of the collaborative poetry collection YOU ARE JAGUAR, with Ryan W. Bradley (Artistically Declined Press, 2012). Send him threats: davidtomaloff.com