NEW! Poems by Michael Pagan

Michael Pagan


Two poems


PULLED RIGHT THROUGH INFINITY


I’ve seen myself backward— 
mouth hung open in a soundless 
moan; whatever it is that watches 
is not human


I awoke, slowly,
in stages, aware of nothing 
but, one, I was lying
on my back, and, two,
I felt terrible


That was the song
that was playing: The Downside 
to Owning Your Own
Island


If I could then just listen 
and watch,
and not say anything:


a figure in the rain
unable to fall—
I don’t really understand it because 
it was you that’s been stealing
the stars


My feet equal handsome,
and the gods spare no one—they, 
and the funny masks
they’d wear
What they don’t realize: everyone 
uses them 

A CLOUDY, LOVERLY, LOVELY


We are cursed, cursed 
again like we’ve been, 
continually


we’ll wind up dead this way, knowing 
very little, and that little fragment 
we’d get wrong, too—
always we are


tablescapes, we are, sat here 
and there, in better light;
a kind sea which lay above, 
and beneath


the spraypainted Peace Across 
A Stone, then tossed away
into a dried up riverbed,
to wait only for the rain,


with no red edges, a rain
of tenor, asking: Are you finding 
what you’re looking for?
out here?
with me?


“But, you’re there and 
you’re busy,” I’d say, “and 
making my teeth
feel dry”


Then stay in the warm


“Then stay,” I’d answer


But, this conversation has lingered enough