Joshua Beckman

I let my body down slow which is what they say to do, like a whale with its breathing and floating in the ocean. Yesterday was the half moon and today was basically the half moon too. A glacier’s blue and water in the middle of a lake is blue. I only had one day during which I could get myself out into the middle of it and I did, kudos to me. And to the resilient goose who never feels cold And to the talky crow who has so many friends And to the inspiring stealthy ducks who fly together in clips above water. It’s a silly betrayal of my own thoughts to invent or remember, so maybe I’ll just close with these tender lines of Henry David Thoreau: “An oak tree in Hubbard’s Passage stands absolutely motionless and dark against the sky.”

Ocean which I pushed up with my fingers so I could touch the orange sand below and white mountain which is not white but for getting caught in the cold Stay here where it is warm and where the sun shines, for later celestial garlands of dead light will draw you into the cold for sure

Lying in bed I think about you, your ugly empty airless apartment and your eyes. It’s noon, and tired I look into the rest of the awake day incapable of even awe, just a presence of particle and wave, just that closed and deliberate human observance. Your thin fingers and the dissolution of all ability. Lay open now to only me that white body, and I will, as the awkward butterfly, land quietly upon you. A grace and staying. A sight and ease. A spell entangled. A span. I am inside you. And so both projected, we are now part of a garden, that is part of a landscape, that is part of a world that no one believes in.

It was as if her love had become a big eye or some historical logic or a religious particle lodged in the brain. In the most costly services of a great society one may find the allure of a benign intelligence. I have hoped, since I was a child, to be surrounded by a group of articulate characters who might with gracious friendship provide some essential entertainment as Aaron’s which was a cane and then a snake and then a cane again great clouds of smoke from the forest Itsy bugs amarch my naked legs in my beard, to burn as one might with one’s eyes I learned, but can no longer remember with what dignity another’s care imbues one. You sit and pick the lice from my hair. What sort of life is this.

Dear Angry Mob, Oak Wood Trail is closed to you. We feel it unnecessary to defend our position, for we have always thought of ourselves (and rightly, I venture) as a haven for those seeking a quiet and solitary contemplation. We are truly sorry for the inconvenience. Signed, Ranger Lil PS            Ofttimes as the day ends on a wet bed of yellow leaves or the sky densens gray and dark I am brought to imagine the growing disquiet in the hearts of my countrymen

The dead girl by the beautiful Bartlett. I'm sad. I make horrible sentences. A woman alone in the park waves. The water. The dead girl by the beautiful Bartlett. Put down the cell phone. I'm sad. The waves. The horrible staring. A woman alone in the park. Waves. The leaves. Leaves along in the park. I'm staring. The dead girl by the beautiful Bartlett. I'm sad. Put down your cell phone. A wave. The sad girl alone in the park. Leaves. Put down your cell phone. The Bartlett. The staring. A leaf alone in the horrible leaves. The dead girl. The staring.

Dark mornings shown thy mask made well thy visage and voice rolling over and hearing some perfect sweetness that one broad soul poured forth again in happy countenance and ancient word my city cold for me, my nature lost come back sallow soft and colorless thy dreams repent as: The whole family each with his own “Now, sweet child, we must kiss winter goodbye, and so too your furs.” She clutched the puppy to her breast. “Not little Bobby, father.” “Yes, my darling, little Bobby as well.” And this, as she ought, was how Gretel remembered summer – a constant giving up of things and people.