I DO NOT WISH TO SPEAK OF CUCUMBERS, BUTTERFLIES, BRUISES.
I do not wish to speak of cucumbers, butterflies, bruises. Dreams
have been many of late, and not a one a mushroom cloud.
A bad cloud. Nor a cloud in the shape of a cloud.
During the downhill, I raise my arms,
winging, to embrace falling catalpa and light pollution.
Which is never heavy, it is only the way we see at night.
Condensation seems ever less and less about molecules,
and more so a cold glass, weeping on a hot day.
There are many kinds of sadness. I read there were
613, to be exact, only 58 of which are legible.
I read of these:
Sadness of having options, nude model sadness,
sadness of feeling the need to create beautiful things.
Oh, there were more, and many more
I have constructed out of loose-leaf, opal, and breath.
Like coins. Do not spend them all in one
go. Here is some advice:
Do not take advice.
Try to locate your equator:
It is harder than you think. I have tried
and after many false meridians, ended up
(ended down) in Antarctica with Herzog, narrating. He speaks like a child.
It is for this we should envy him, to speak nothing of,
and without, accent. It is not a matter obtuse, it is purely continental.
When I say obtuse, I do not mean to say elbows are
ever greater than right nor lesser than wrong. I would never say that.
I wouldn’t dream of it. Any more and less than less would
I dare to dream of looking in a window, only to notice that
the falling snow turns my hair lavender, or astro turf jackets on pepper shakers.
I would never dream that. None of this is true. Make sure.
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POEMS TO BE READ TO SMALL ANIMALS (collagraph)
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TWELVE POEMS FOR FRANK O’HARA (three-color woodcut on lenox rag paper, plywood, excelsior)
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Avril Thurman is a poet and visual artist living in Cincinnati, Ohio. Currently a Junior at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, she was recently published in Brighton Approach Vol. I, and has her sights set on New York City, where she will represent the AAC in the New York Studio Program for the Spring Semester of 2010.
