Juno

you are possibly a flower

a flower who spends its time contemplating the nature

of failure               it’s okay

the CDC keeps a catalog of many of the ways that you can die

but it’s only a partial list

you don’t have to choose now

you have time

I’m trying to decide what I should tell you

me with my diseases on my shelf

and my secrets folded up

hidden away

should I tell you that there was one week of my life

where I watched Juno twice every night?

I don’t even know why I did that

maybe it was just my cup running over with promise

with all this pressure on me

maybe I will turn into a diamond

I’m sorry that I don’t know how to become gold

yet              I’m working on it

believe me              I’m working on it

don’t tell me the nasty rumors that you’ve heard

about alchemy

 

 

 

Instructions for my Signature Cocktail

throw a lemon into the ocean & call it lemonade

               remember what youth tasted like

the sound of everything crashing into nothing

               the world washed in its terrible nostalgia

and me      I want to be the sun

              light not just wrapped in its fuzzy coat

not just me    misspelling embarrassed and restaurant

               when I spent six years working in a restaurant

and I feel embarrassed nearly all the time

               when I finally rob a bank

the first question they’ll ask me

               is why I didn’t take any of the money

they’ll ask about the terrible light that shines

              out from inside of me

I don’t have an answer for any of this

                I think these things happen when I get in too deep

I’m just like everyone else     I’m skin over wire

              water damage      a flock of birds

in the distance three dogs bark     each at a different moon

               the trees are exactly where I left them

I think this is what they call comfort

 

 

 

This poem is like a Peter Frampton Song in that it Features a Lengthy Talk Box Guitar Solo

In this poem, we will fight for custody of the sky

In this poem, someone will win a war insomuch as a war can be won

In this poem, a transparent machine will surrounds us

In this poem, the corporations will ask so much from us

In this poem, we will be lost in the maze of profit & slime &

In this poem, I will be full of excuses

In this poem, I will be wrapped in bubble wrap, but

In this poem, children will pop the bubbles one by one

In this poem, they will laugh & laugh & laugh as they go

 

 

Nicholas Bon lives in Georgia, where he edits Epigraph Magazine. You can find his recent poems in Spy Kids Review, Ghost City Review, the Bottlecap Press blog, and elsewhere. He tweets @1000000horses and you can find more of his work at nicholasbon.com.