REESE THOMPSON

from Book of Songs

b.

I will let the wind know
What the well is whispering

From its cobbled throat, gargling
A bucket of heresy.

I will let it know,
And the stars too, numb prickly-brained
With a lazy-lidded moon

Winking. Tell the trees to pass the word on;

Oh, let it know the earth is a grave
And its cities a cemetery of superstitions.

Let them know the days
Collapse like cards in the tarot,

And an ocean of sand quenches the raining flames
That ignite the nightmare.

My horoscope is the well
Where your mother weeps.

c.

(An empty stage in a downtown NY theatre. Spot on a born again evangelical ANT, his arms embracing the light. Spot on a hipster COCKROACH in trendy clothes, mixing cocktails. PLAYWRIGHT sits in the shadow taking notes, scrutinizing the scene intensely, making rewrites. The Present.)

ANT:
It was because of the word
And because I believed it
I believed
It through absurdity
Into the dark ridicule of fact
To its sharp logic
And shy simplicity.

COACHROACH:
I took the word in my mouth
And gargled its syllables,
I digested its content in the blender
Of my belly
And still the brick sits
Inconsolably
Unspoken.

PLAYWRIGHT:
What would my father say
If I told him wars are invented by rich men?

d.

You said it into the wells of the world
and it answered you back every time.

Speak it, turn a flashlight on it
by giving it a name and then say it,
say it into the wells of the world

until it answers back, until the bridge of
your arm reaches me, who waits out the
long vigil of your departure with dinner

cooling on the table, in a suit of blameless white.

Drop it into the wells that dogs bark down,
the wells of the world that return my voice
to you, call it whatever it wants to become;

the empty wine bottles, the brittle star of
the leaf that crackles in my hand, rooting into
my nails and tangling the knuckles with vein—
lining the palms with fortune’s decision:

whether we’ll call it ours or just yours and mine:

a bowl of milk, a mouth full of teeth and a tongue
that wants to say the word just to hear it said back.
 

Chrysanthemum

We stop on the cold road
To measure the progress we made:
The sun bends slow over jade;
The sea is scaled in gold.

We kick the dust from our boots,
We pass a smoke hand to hand;
I pass fingers through my hair, scan
The hard star on the map, the mute

Somewhere we are headed for –
The chrysanthemums sting the mist,
Reach into the world, their hot fists
Burst five-fingered from a meteor.

We choose a spot by the sand
To ignite a fire against the fading light:
The moon bites into the black night,
The sea swallows the land.

I stir the red coals with a stick.
You watch the waves move under black.
I see the shadows dance inexact
Around our small camp, the quick

Lick of the flame, the impulsive fret
Of its light in the fierce night capsizes
This moment I cannot exorcise
With turns of forgiveness and regret.

What are you not afraid of, dear,
That I am? This little bit of time
Is too huge to bear. We sleep entwined:
A flicker on my face, the sea in your ear.

Ode to a Lighthouse

An ode, though there’s still so much to complain about.
My spine, for example: helical stairs circling up a column
to a bare room of windows with two empty chairs facing
a view of the sea. The white blaring light behind my eye

fixes upon some destination far off. If I leave you
I’ll remain here in our home and you’ll find another.
This morning the sea is a sheet of glass struck with a hammer.
“See it glitter?” I ask you, an empty chair, if I leave you.

An ode to the fact of the sea, the blue job of the sky,
the part of me I didn’t know knew how to survive.
An ode, though there’s still so much to complain about.
 

Reese Thompson is a poet, novelist and playwright. His work has appeared in Paris/Atlantic, Third Coast, Yefief, No Exit, The Beloit Poetry Journal and others. He's the winner of Lyric Recovery's first Prize in Prague and a finalist in their international competition. His work has been performed at The Nuyorican Poet's Cafe, The SoHo Art's Festival, and Carnegie Hall. He's co-founder of the theatre company, Vex Productions. He's also one of the original Rogue Scholars. Currently, he divides his time between New York and Spain.