The Voices Project
Follow us
  • POETRY LIBRARY
  • ABOUT
  • SUBMIT
  • RESOURCES

Ruidoso~ By Nick Vafiadis

12/11/2018

0 Comments

 
Walking home one evening
I notice a dim blue light; between 
the black cracked glass of sluiced tree-gangs
and the chest-high grass gleaming with dew
flinging like flint in the mountain’s breath

I waited for Gabriel, or the baptist’s head
to roll down from the upward climbing reeds
but there was no arrival, kind of like pain
only less sight, and bird noises
there was nothing but a fantastic sick-heat
on my skin. And the blue swell of the fractals
that hung up between like fruit in the trees
of this place, the world’s negatives

My simple brain tries its best 
to unlearn sentiment. 
Like lifting a toenail, the soul prostrates
jeans heavy in the sucking purple mud
and I start praying to un-feel water
to reverse the touch of the wind
but for some reason
My heart always pulls back and under
before gushing beauty like peroxide
in a wound

I decide that if nothing else, before I leave
at least I will work out the exact color of this blue
until I can make it wait like a formula.
It’s almost a robin’s egg blue
the oxidized blue of a century old truck
the hoarse, whispery blue of my mother’s arthritic hands
wrapping bloodless around the skillet handle in ground freeze January
and I realize I can’t even look at it too long
before my eyes have to shut, and watch it gloat
flitting like a pink kite in the clear blindness 

Eventually I get up and turn back down the slope
towards home. Working out a bad story about
inheritances and curses for myself
And when the ones who were waiting 
for me ask where I was. It’s easier to just say
that I drank more than I out to have
and slipped into the creek

but when I blink between their movements
I can still see that pink kite
and when they’ve gone to bed, I can still get up
and watch a portion of blue squared in the window
long enough to remember my nebulous world on the mountain
and the feeling of being god
just as strange and lonely 
as being the cricket


Author Bio:
Nick Vafiadis is a writer and editor for 'Satellite', an online arts and culture journal. He likes chicken nuggets, jazz, and bad poetry. Nick admires the work of Larry Levis, Charles Bukowski, and Arthur Rimbuad; though he's sure they would all be thoroughly embarrassed by his own work. Nick writes because he prefers it over praying or watching sports. Although Nick has not been widely published, his mother still believes that he is an undiscovered genius. 
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Poet Search

    by last name

    Archives

    January 2023
    June 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    November 2012

    RSS Feed

Contact The Voices Project: editors@thevoicesproject.org