THE CRITIC WRITES POEMS

FOUR POEMS
By Michael Caylo-Bardi


Nights in a public park in Los Angeles

Night sleeps trees silhouettes,
Upright shadows, rustling
There are no streetlights here,
            just eye-glints, from an occasional moon
Forms walk forms, glide, around, beside, breathing,
            excited,
Giving tree trunks thickness, intimacy, intimations
Negotiations whisper lips,
            intensify lunar halos
Wounds contract ablutions,
Viral passage, efficient transmissions

I move, touch, join from a distance
Leaves crack steps
Private outlines converge, interpenetrate, deform
Unspectacular pornographies, grainy spectacle, small screen,
                                      glamorous cell-phone cinematographies

The city is squeezed in its sound


++++++++++


Judas in Los Angeles

Garden chants prowl
freeway loose lips

Only one messiah
from hundreds, thousands

Deserves crucifixion glamour
Mariachi spectacle

Rosary multitude eyes lick
television monitors witness

Lines saturate minds on
alley-walls billboards tiles

This isn’t nostalgia,
prophecy, time-lapse recurrence

You can turn off monitors,
any pupil cinematography

You can sleep now
bow out this gospel

Or chant psalms testaments
backwards towards the first-word

In the beginning was the word,
the serpent’s hissy kiss

And soon a kiss soothes, drops
resplendent shadows, linen resurrections


++++++++++


Insomnia Eden

City-lights word poverty.
Desires whirlpool symmetry.
Rigidity boulevards corrupt.

Eyes eye eyes flow in.
Bodies assemble impatience.
Agency saturation cashed.

Calibrations calculated: crepuscular.
The sincerity of sighs: paradise.
Haven rests, networks, fraternal.


++++++++++


Manifest Disillusions, Authenticity, Destinations

News
take bodies
where gods imply

We
leave our
soil to eat

Passage
acquires tracks
dissolving in hunger

We
bend horizons
refusing tragic deserts

Journey
crowns mutations
tropic as depth

Murdered
fixations reset
roots desire freedom

Gravity
hides us
into fierce fear

Resistance
has ended
We resuscitate gods

Winnowed
Illusions clarify
dark hearts apart

We
empower dissonance
into melted echoes


*****

Michael Caylo-Baradi lives in Southern California. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in XCP:Streetnotes, Tertulia Magazine, OurOwnVoice, elimae, and Kartika Review. He occasionally contributes op-ed pieces to the Los Angeles Daily News.