Pulse
What of the drum
its timbre a taut
membrane between
beat and rest
systole/
diastole
pounding blood to the surface,
twinning one’s body
to the world.
If you give yourself to it,
find yourself on a riverbank at night
padding a cadence barefoot
until mud oozes up between the toes,
your heart lies open
beneath the animal hide
stretched across a hollow log
holding on
registering a pulse.
Ghosts
We see him sometimes up
there on his stilted walks
Lunging forward in the light
as if by accident
So far we’ve let him be
whenever he wanders nearby
speaking of things
we don’t understand
Down here we try
to live simply
We weigh a man’s worth
by the freedom he possesses
and which possesses him
That seems fair
to all concerned
Yet there are times
when a shadow follows him
and one wonders
if there isn’t something we should do
Just to ease his mind
or maybe our own
He seems to regard us as something needful
to believe he still inhabits
a place among the living
It can be troubling
thinking of ourselves that way
Maybe that’s all we are though
it’s difficult to find anyone to ask.
Mt. Greylock Dawn
Slant can’t calculate
the wise course.
The sun circles
this mountain,
carries wind
in its wake.
The accomplice
of what
we don’t know,
fear whistles at night
and silence
awaits the intrepid.
History shows
civilizations
have been built
on less
than
this.
Be Sure to Show Your Work
The square root of two is not one,
as anyone can tell you
who has measured the perimeter of a relationship.
Angles pose a significant problem:
when they are obtuse the shortest distance
between two persons becomes a null set.
On the other hand, if the logarithms aren’t right
a couple will have difficulty
solving for why on the axis of love.
If a man leaves his wife heading north
at the speed of infinity
and she circles irrationally at a periodic interval
less than or equal to the probability of convergence,
how long will it take them to intersect
at the lowest common denominator,
assuming the hypotenuse is not
an imaginary sea creature?
Artifact
I sensed
I stopped
beheld
was beheld in turn
in wonder
doubting
I redoubled
what was singular about me
preening to stay alive
a ghost shadow
of the nuclear past
leaving a signature
on the world’s face
come what might
like a ball balanced
atop a waterspout
according to chance.
A.J. Sorrentino was born in New York City and currently lives in western Massachusetts. His poetry arises from the intersection of imagination and language to explore the way perception shapes the world. He is the author of the chapbook Being Still, and his poems have appeared in Meat for Tea and other regional publications.
