Selden Cummings

red red red
green

green green green
red

the pattern of 
leaves

on a tablecloth
spread

rosa blaze 

As a child I thought bathing suit was “babing” suit
something for babies.

Dark green leaves hum in the rose bushes (of them, of them)
as bass guitar nestles in a song.

You only see them for what they exploit or 
explode: the flower.

The color. And as a child I also thought I was safe
something for babies.

“Break out the cannabis!” my brother said,
words creating (but not of) him

and they all bowed to us those flowers like we were
famous or something

“But don’t you see how the still objects of earth do the same
thing shadows splayed out like

obsidian arrows flocking toward their target
angels frontlit bowing 

to some faceless God.” God I used to get so high
and pretend words were bricks

since then I only pretend.

Omen

We are moths, you and I, but not blind,
only intent on some center—orbiting, orbiting—

falling, unencumbered, falling. Spiraling, really, is our game.
Although the light we love is more accurately an absence;

it is a black hole in the fabric of our behavior, a happy chasm
that we cannot resist, the paragon of desire, around which

we revolve. It is a vacuum of selfhood, a numbing of the spirit or 
flattening of the ego, a chance to inhabit the vessel of childhood

before the fall, the same fall that blessed our futures
as a long-promised rise—anything is possible!

Despite that first mistake that set armament aflame
we still yearn for knowledge, which, once tasted,

cannot be spit out, lest the earth reverse its course and break the sun’s radius,
in a blind sprint beyond the warmth of his bright hug.

But every child knows it’s going to end: the jolly man will die,
and candy’s sweet promise, upon the eve of innocence, rots.

So we flock to our fables, to those light-inhaling magic flames,
fleeing not the world but our places in it, trashing these bodies,

these big, gaudy reminders of what we lost. We embrace
whatever erases us: I do not drink out of the bottle, the bottle

drinks out of me, gulps me down to that sweet nothingness 
where freedom is leased. It is our great blank, although from it

we always return, having learned that nostalgia is not a slave to memory,
that we can only laugh at ourselves if we aren’t looking,

and that the monster is not invincible, but will only succumb
to the destruction of I, and the pride of nobody.

interim

when you hold my face
each of your hands becomes a continent
and I become the ocean in-between.
I dream of martyrs, and wonder
while you sleep, why your beauty
reeks of irritation as if
love made you sensitive
to the air that ages you
with weapons too small to see
by the indecent pupil.
Sometimes I pretend 
that you’re growing in my backyard,
thick invisible roots 
caked in dirt like fingers
flecked with chocolate cake
rooting through my memory
touch my face again
and the flask of regret
will have to sell itself
to the devil.
When
your hazel irises pebble
themselves in offshore wind
that I am come among you,
like an orchid, or an organ player,
strapping into the emotion 
of the crowd, savoring heart with
the organization of my fingers
prodding and pulling the chords
casting forth song after sweet,
sad song into that venomous air
that wrinkles every sleeping ocean
flanked by restless continents.

Out for a Walk

The sleeve of my energy reeks, smells like…

if I could tell you I would cry.

I’ve only spoken to God

twice. Once, when I was born,

shivering violently, 

and again when I bit into a cold

strawberry, wandering through the yellow grass 

behind my house,

searching for caterpillars.

Wishlist

Wish I were smarter.
Wish I understood all stuff I think I understand.
Wish I truly understood it.
Wish I never grow tired of poetry.
Wish I handicaps for dead regions in the broken polity
transfixed by repetitions of “yours truly” in accordions.
Wish I could count past two.
Wish of a flaming bungalow, spoiled milk.
Wish of the wish. WISSSHHH.
Whisper it: “whhhissshhh.”
Wish I could delve below this word
This line.
This exclamation point!
This question mark?
This comma, this period.
These “quotations”
what she said according to what he said about her involving him.
Wish I had a dime for every
Wish I had a dime for every
Wish I had a dime for every wish list I ruined
  battered
  beaten
  buttered
  eaten.
Wish I could talk to Satan.
Wish I had had the courage to name my daughter Eden. 
Wish loneliness were opium,
Wish blood were black but—
        —when it hits oxygen it goes white.
My thoughts do the opposite: (needle of the moment bright lights in my head manifest as to anti-dissolve on paper becoming dark).
Wish I knew the enemy,
and the things behind things.
Wish I could step past language.
Wish my brain could unravel itself: I not untangle knot of I
and what idiot God gave us the power to kill ourselves
before knowing ourselves?
No such thing as breaking the pattern.
Am I as ancient as I feel?
Only looking back.

About the Author

Selden Cummings is a poet and musician from Santa Barbara, California, currently living and performing in NYC.