The Garden of Earthly Delights
This installment of the PEN Poetry Series, selected by Ben Mirov, features a new poem from Joseph Lease, author most recently of Testify (Coffee House Press, 2011).
The Garden of Earthly Delights
Your
Kisses
Your
Sky
Your
Darkness
Your
Sky
*
—no—
paint
angel—
flesh—
paint
angel—
*
I’m high, I’m steam, I’m words like sky—America, you can’t be greed; America, you’re only greed; America, one extra summer night—nothing ends, see you later, nothing ends, tell me sky: you love to blue, I love to blue, a bowl of snow, a bowl of snow: morphine’s best:
*
so
willows
so
lost
*
Yelling at the building, yelling at the secret, yelling after midnight: try this: property is death: they had a body crammed in a mailbox and it was just a brown suit with bones sticking out: dirty, clean, kindness, longing: write the night—sound gives life—death’s sound too—keep listening, listen: before you broke me I thought I was free: sinful and free—
*
it’s so
raw
you like
that raw
still
still
burning
past
what it
says
try
try
again
*
Blue sound, blue vision, skyscrapers, empty tombs: nothing ends, see you later; sound and vision, broken rooms: mist, ropes of wind: end of the night, watery greens, blue winter night, thirty years gone—end of the night, watery greens, blue winter night—give me the round
sky to
suck—
*
so
willows
so
lost
so
open
so
long
*
Your
Kisses
Your
Sky
Your
Darkness
Your
Sky
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