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17 July

Nicholas Skaldetvind


Am I the monster out of the classical world as a beast bent on grace,

a fear of living in separate separation

from the women I love. Ghosts of another world

corralling in the pull of pendulous paradise.

What is near becoming distant youth close to

making sense

what this centering moment requires

a glimpse of someone loving

in an etiquette of grace

fraudulent memory in abstract negative space. A nerve twists

so leave it at that in California

I am wringing out

the past in a cold summer fog

while you sleep about, you,

I think it was you, who reminded me

that each gesture shared overshadows the background

of who we are. Probably the act of remembering

is the act of full heartache actuating the myths.

Drying up in the void of the past. Making themselves felt

in the foreground I move against continuously

foreseeing telephone calls as a natural predator –

chthonic mind – telephone poles are crucifixes underground

imploring the words to work.

Hearing the waning moonlight

across Sancho and Quijote

because of the jagged neon in Grand Vía in spite of

this, I told myself I did anyway in conversation

with my diary in a supreme fear that I’d

be lost in a wandering sense -

sorry I was counting how old I was, sorry 

I never answered on time.  Under a California sun I embody

lonesomeness after company. Call me Skaldetvind.

I’m ashamed to keep telling you this as if I’d always been myself.

Memory clicks as someone I love calls me

against a certain slant of morning light into the clear.

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