the maze of a room with everyone in it such impossible elegy
that particulate waves move through us
mostly vegetable now our bodies filled with starlight
both particle and wave our hands have reached
for torches in the dark fire is fire
the parachute deployed at the moment of impact another word for I love you
in eternal return the helicopter blade
what you have been told you have been told before
below the surface of the ice the breathing hole has frozen shut
tusked and dark in burlap, a song
Languor Angels
was it green eyes flecked with gray or gray eyes flecked with green
you know bloom is another name for a school of jellyfish
and do you remember what happens in the dream the shadow goes by
in the time it takes the brain to flip the image right side up
because there’s an answer to every question but one
that’s the whole point of the doorframe in the desert-- no surprises on the other side
I want to do something generic like answer the telephone
a stimulating conversation on the most relevant of issues
parentless clouds destroy themselves and what have you done for me lately?
the last words of an infamous playwright remark the simple pleasure in peeling an orange
the way a daisy can blossom from the barrel of a gun or a tiny flag with words
-- Nathan Stabenfeldt is an MFA candidate in poetry at University of Houston and Nonfiction Editor for Gulf Coast Literary Journal. He was born and raised in Evansville, Indiana. Before moving to Houston he studied writing and philosophy at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. His poetry has appeared in DMQ Review, among other places.