I Had No Time of Sense by Adam Tedesco | ISSUE EIGHTEEN: Say Yes, Mr. Tell

I Had No Time of Sense

Adam Tedesco

Or not looking back for that lux aeterna
Green flash as everything about today goes subjective against hot clay
The past is a mesa you can own
But what do you do once you own it
You can ride out to the shadow and stare upward
Watching dust stream from its plateau
Every moment of consciousness
a weapon as it turns to past

A Town Car wired to blow

A well-placed spike strip

A palmed stone

We can agree not to aim for each other
We can forget the natural state
Always dwindling

We can pretend not to know the gravity of open doors
Passengers and carry-ons sucked into cloud
We can speak of the integrity of the impossible
Surviving a megaton cruelty
The blasted man holds his own eyes in his hands
And how he knows these are his eyes

The past is an oak that owns itself
When the wind blows it down an acorn falls and grows in its place
The child of the tree inherits the grounds
Branches mirrored by roots
A quantum position of singularity
Or safety in numbers, all packing heat

Adam Tedesco is a founding editor of REALITY BEACH, a journal of new poetics. His recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Laurel Review, Gramma Weekly, Prelude, Fanzine, Fence, and elsewhere. He is the author of several chapbooks, most recently HEART SUTRA, and ABLAZA (Lithic Press), and the forthcoming collection Mary Oliver (Lithic Press, 2019).

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