Private Longitudes

Last week, a storm ripped through unknown pleasures in arid California
This morning, a memory ran amok through the refuges within my heart

In 1947, this land was partitioned in the glistening lingua of akin blood
I’m seven; I split my knee on a ground fragmented by flecks of white

France carries out nuclear explosions, somewhere in a Polynesian dream
Years later, a radiation machine pounds my skull with illustrative clarity

Someone unearths a statue of the Buddha, buried within the earth’s howl
At possibly the same time, I wear a maroon robe, gently disavowed

A magnitude of 7.6 inflicts the currencies of the naïve Andaman Sea
On an August Istanbul night, I release the gorgeous ache into lost ether

That summer, the politicians learned to choreograph nature’s denials
Three springs removed; I conjure bedroom eyes for a beautiful goodbye

Catalonia has split from Spain, all this morning’s headlines scream
An hour past dusk, the last of the gulmohar betroth themselves to mud

Venice shall drown unto its sorrows, you’d divulged once in stillness
I immediately mapped out degrees and the circadian lull of frequencies

In the winter of ’73, Pablo Neruda disappeared unto everyday mist
Exactly thirty years later, I begin to sketch my first canvasses of verse

All this parallel flood, as the cosmos consumed an imperceptible thirst
Why didn’t anyone bother telling me, that a butterfly’s wings had stirred?