Ari Banias: Two Poems

Being With You Makes Me Think About
We is something like a cloud. How big, how thick,
its shape – ambiguous. We is moving across
a magnificent sky. We see the sky all around us but
also we can look down at our own hands.
A cloud is a changing thing. Sometimes we are an animal
smiling, clawing at something
not there. Other times we spread out so thin we almost
don’t exist. We are thickening just now. A sea of slow
knitting. And soon it will rain, and we
will be down in the grass again. A blade of grass gets thirsty;
it’s nice to think we could quench that.
It’s something we could really be good at. Sometimes
arms get in the way,
remind us we’re separate. Laying side by side
and looking into another pair of eyes as if
there’s a way to see into the dark
pupil’s pit, some place “behind” where truth lies.
Other times whose
hands are whose, our mouths together the permeable
entrance to the bright underworld chamber,
and a rush of remembering
all eyes are lit from behind, the wiring rigged back to the same
source, like putting together so many
small things you have a better, bigger thing.
Relative to what? It doesn’t matter.
There’s something to be said for individuality,
multiplied. The earth is breathing out through countless eyes
asking for every possible ray of light to meet every possible rainstorm.
They do attract. And aloneness only keeps getting bigger.
One day we will tell you all about it. At our own table.
There are things we cannot see. Most things. Most of all.
Various Attentions All Landing Like Birds Into the Same Tree and Thrilling There Some Minutes at Dusk
if I were a man, this would all be different –
but I “am” a man –
(a “man”)
oh, stop harping
(how many women fuss over you –)
in the dream when he takes off his shirt, the outside of his body
looks like the inside. he’s an artist (an Artist) –
so is this what I need to learn how to do?
wrestle down “I” with “we”
then wrestle down “we” – (still hold dear
experience & consciousness as lived by an each)
cast off and mock “I” like out of style clothes
so now,
what to wear, what to wear…
(but to feel fiercely)
stop harping – “I” got sold and trademark’d by enemies
excuse we, how speak?
there’s a thin line of flame runs the length of each, mind to gut
find it & tie it to a crowd
if saddle up willingness plus experience what
can we make for us?
“we” turns a key
voluminous we drop our coffees at once put our hands in the air
how many utopias? (keep imagining us)
air gushing through a wide-open window
the awe
the branches belong to
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