Gary Percesepe ~ More Sentences We Couldn’t Get Enough Of

(a cen­to)

The prob­lem of psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly dis­tort­ed deities is an extreme­ly com­plex sub­ject, which tran­scends the lim­i­ta­tions of the present work. In the east, I could see Jupiter ris­ing, fat and blur­ry. We begin to rec­og­nize the mon­u­ments of the bour­geoisie as ruins even before they have crum­bled. The riotous glass hous­es built on rock. If you could hear the glar­ing light­bulb sing. I too have loved—an incum­bent hus­band all wives can imag­ine dead. Night exe­cu­tions spare me the agony of ear­ly ris­ing. Last year our drunk­en quar­rels had no expla­na­tions. The old fol­lies nev­er return—the hous­es still burn. A gen­tle­man is an aris­to­crat on bail. Let’s face it, English is a racist last-ditch. The paint is always peel­ing from the palace. The fire­men smash holes in their own house. The great bore­dom blaz­ing on ster­ile water. The way a pain begins. Yet one dead­beat can pol­lute a whole uni­verse. I can’t explain it, but per­haps it means that once you’re over fifty you’re rid of a lot of deci­bels. The boats have rolled up their col­ored sails. Weather drips qui­et­ly through the skeins of my diary. The pres­i­dent always knew, under her lilacs was a liv­er fad­ing. Abruptly the sea­son backed up. Bright green out of the red. Almost fell off my empire. But peo­ple do change in life, as well in fic­tion. It hurts, this want­i­ng to give a dimen­sion to life, when life is pre­cise­ly that dimen­sion. Like a sum­mer kan­ga­roo, each of us is a part of the sun in its tum­bling com­mo­tion. The room I entered was a dream of this room. Surely these feet on the sofa were mine. The oval por­trait of a dog was me at an ear­ly age. Suppose this poem were about you–would you put in the things I’ve care­ful­ly left out: descrip­tions of pain, and sex, and how shifti­ly peo­ple behave toward each oth­er? No two poets ever agreed on any­thing, and that amused us. It seemed good, the clot­ted dark­ness that came every day. You wore your cum­mer­bund with the stars and stripes. I, kilt in lime, held a stetho­scope to the head of the part­ing guest. Together we were a cou­ple forever.

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Gary Percesepe is the author of THE WINTER OF J, and an Associate Editor at New World Writing.