Skull

Beside the flanks of white houses

The plants sing liquefying songs.

Their metallic voices are like

Drops of heavy paint,

Colorful molts from a dragon’s side.

When I hear them

I believe there is a festival

In the inner life of all things,

In the marrow, the deep materials.

A knot of music

That cracks open

Like a frozen skull.

 

Odonata

I moved the prow

Which was treading light

More than seawater, And turned it towards

The crux of new beginnings,

Those bright solstices.

No one had a compass

But the stars were enough,

The balanced needles of the heart

And that other, magnetic force

We cannot name.

We are never really lost.

We find a circle on the map

At the place where a dragonfly

Set down.

Its feet were made of fire,

And the magical prints

Resemble an island.

Odonata we call it,

And there is no reason to fear

As long as those rainbow-colored

Wings exist.

O circumneural waters!

Cascading fauna!

We have been chasing

All night your green locus.

This beautiful, multilayered world

Is all we need.

 

 

Basin

Gradual sunlight, that comes through

To where the road parts the rushes.

To where the water-birds

Scour for deep fish.

Far off, the shore unrolls

Its black sleeves to trawl

The bottom of the lake.

A boy who drowned here

Turns his remaining eye

To the many changes.

He walks on bone-clad feet

While a sail boat made of

Old lovers drifts hazily

Up ahead.

In the hidden caverns

Beneath the whorls

Of pebbled light,

The memory of the glacier

Haunts the gigantic absence

Where its body used to be.

 

 

Seth Jani currently resides in Seattle, WA and is the founder of Seven CirclePress (www.sevencirclepress.com). His own work has been published widely in such places as Abyss & Apex, The Chiron Review, El Portal, The Devilfish Review, The Hamilton Stone Review, Gingerbread House, Gravel and Zetetic: A Record of Unusual Inquiry. More about him and his work can be found at www.sethjani.com.