Last Days
Last moments
compiled
sorted
distributed
recorded in iPhone-light, in
the blast-dash of connection, of
drifting connection, of loss, drifting, of
light, shadow, flatness, depth, of
walking the ordinary-grand,
the ordinary, shitty steps
the ordinary, candy conch
the bus stops and sand, supermarket grand
the scaffolding and side
the Nomad and ride
dislocation--
our hands like balloons
each book and coffee, each
tip and twirl
different
so different, distanced
so familiar, moving
plastic-flowers on the descanso
at Coors & Gonzales--
I didn’t know them.
You’ve never seen
their crude-prop, sandy elegance,
but their inkjet faces
watch me walk,
watch me return, the
ordinary trodden, the
ordinary turn.
Their situated hour, complete.
What is it, then, between us, at all times?
In all spaces?
In all forms?
My situated hour, unfinished,
seems convenient for afternoon.
My last day would be after lunch.
In the flashing, space-dash movement,
Itinerant flash-light
of night and time,
burning Palmdale, that muggy-Cambridge-New-Mexico
smash, rootless Vermont
before I knew you
(but if I always knew you…?)
the mysterious-missing, the almost-shaped
its own descanso,
maybe dramatic, silly.
That I walk past San Ygnacio, Tower and Bridge,
the place with good taco-lunch
high desert telephone madness
of dead coyote, cactus mess,
crouching trash and sidewalk nest;
the day is filled to crushing
by the smash-weight of your silence.
Zero hour.
Waiting yet again.
The space cleaves me in two.
An impossible distance,
on the surface of a planet,
can you believe it?
We walk on a planet.
That this should be about something loftier?
What’s more lofty than sharing a Coke?
Our last days begin with mornings.
-Ren Adams, 2015
Last moments
compiled
sorted
distributed
recorded in iPhone-light, in
the blast-dash of connection, of
drifting connection, of loss, drifting, of
light, shadow, flatness, depth, of
walking the ordinary-grand,
the ordinary, shitty steps
the ordinary, candy conch
the bus stops and sand, supermarket grand
the scaffolding and side
the Nomad and ride
dislocation--
our hands like balloons
each book and coffee, each
tip and twirl
different
so different, distanced
so familiar, moving
plastic-flowers on the descanso
at Coors & Gonzales--
I didn’t know them.
You’ve never seen
their crude-prop, sandy elegance,
but their inkjet faces
watch me walk,
watch me return, the
ordinary trodden, the
ordinary turn.
Their situated hour, complete.
What is it, then, between us, at all times?
In all spaces?
In all forms?
My situated hour, unfinished,
seems convenient for afternoon.
My last day would be after lunch.
In the flashing, space-dash movement,
Itinerant flash-light
of night and time,
burning Palmdale, that muggy-Cambridge-New-Mexico
smash, rootless Vermont
before I knew you
(but if I always knew you…?)
the mysterious-missing, the almost-shaped
its own descanso,
maybe dramatic, silly.
That I walk past San Ygnacio, Tower and Bridge,
the place with good taco-lunch
high desert telephone madness
of dead coyote, cactus mess,
crouching trash and sidewalk nest;
the day is filled to crushing
by the smash-weight of your silence.
Zero hour.
Waiting yet again.
The space cleaves me in two.
An impossible distance,
on the surface of a planet,
can you believe it?
We walk on a planet.
That this should be about something loftier?
What’s more lofty than sharing a Coke?
Our last days begin with mornings.
-Ren Adams, 2015
Back to Last Days (collection)
