Aftermath I am aware of all the ways In which I am not aware Grace is more than a notion It is a condition of being in a body And what is a body? And are you listening for what the question is really asking? And are you certain that you don't want to be here anymore? Is there perhaps not something more beneath that feeling? Tell me, who stole your joy? In whose hands were held carelessly the things you were made of? And if you could, would you go back and fight even harder? You couldn't have won, you know. It's not your fault That the sound of rain triggers something in the body The unexpected ping And washout And a war is more deadly once the war is over, And what is a war And aren't you here, still Though the odds were so great against it I am aware of all the ways In which no poem, or prayer or hand reaching out in the dark Is ever enough. ❡ A poem for my father while he's still living My father's laughter How can I make you see It was just the air we breathed Tethered us Dowsing body of sweet joy Shoulder to shoulder on the worn couch Picture us Tired and beautiful Around the television's warm glow Mad TV, Grace Under Fire, House of Buggins, I want to bottle his laugh An amulet of holy sound Worn for the rest of my days Around my neck I want him never to leave This world we're in My father Want a heaven full of televisions God must know this man's laugh Must know how much he had to suffer and lose To find his way to it I refuse to imagine a world without this sound All around Like the blues It's sung with the whole body Corn swaying in the cool breeze He jumps and he makes that shot from the 3 point line And everything is just fine Not fine, almost fine beginning, ending, beginning My father, lost in the bins Records from way back when In his hard working hands We skip church in search Of that sweeter music Walk along the road Honey buns and chocolate milk from the corner store Say what you want That was my heaven Right there between pump number one and pump number two Me and him Out along the road I did not know I was in the holy moment How quickly time passes That you can't go back To the precise feeling Of the two of you Up along the road Searching for the promised land In the dusty light of the bins A river of sound run through us Washing us clean and new And whole and home. I refuse to imagine a world without all of this. ❡ A big, beautiful dark There's a tree, Charlotte A big dark beautiful tree Between you and me Right along the road, little bird, And we are running Still, a tree, and the world, Charlotte, the world Remember how it felt To stand where once we stood Light in the field Such breeze could carry one Charlotte, the world, then- It's not the same world now Still, there's a tree A big beautiful dark in me The world, Charlotte, a big dark beautiful field, oh little bird, in all that light, Burning. The world, Charlotte, the world, Burning in light.
—Submitted on 01/28/2023
James Diaz is the author of This Someone I Call Stranger (Indolent Books, 2018), All Things Beautiful Are Bent (Alien Buddha, 2021) and Motel Prayers (Alien Buddha, 2022.) Diaz’s work has appeared most recently in Thrush Poetry Journal, Wrongdoing Mag, Sugar House Review, and Rust + Moth.
Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left refers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left. Poems already in our Submittable queue that have simple non-flush-left formatting may be considered for publication.
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