The Man That is Many ~

If you’ll indulge me, I’m going to dispense with politics today. There’s been death in family and I figure we can all use a break from political viewpoints now and then (yes?). Today, I’m thinking more about both the smallness and the largeness of the individual life, and how each of our little consciousnesses contain within them so much more than we can possibly express or understand—and how they radiate outward with a force that even we, as its containers, cannot contain.

And so here I gingerly place three loosely connected poems upon the vast river that speeds us all through time, whether we swim against the current or not. As always, thanks for reading.

THE MAN

Balloonman

chickenman

soul-lit man

hey man

me man

head turning astral man

I spotted a leaf-couched

sunken-toothed man

sinking into a floor

a forest

soft needles and

he laughed

with ground gurgling

and questioned me through the ground’s maw:

what kind of man are you?

What man comes out your eyes when you

Go down

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I, HE, THE MANY

I was a shape-shifting sky sprinter

I breathed electricity

and shed loose tears on scraggly fields of your hometown

I was a comely curmudgeon

I snapped at children on their way to school

and twisted my alligator cane

around the lamp-post

I was a desperate rock ‘n’ roller

I snuck around the back alley,

tripped over a garbage lid

and street-sprawled my way to sonic abandon

I was a professor in a tear suit leaning

against a wall

my heart tugged at the sleeves of passers-by,

begging an audience in vernacular

I was a wet black solid shade

I fell

and crackled

and slit the unconscious earth

I was the unconscious earth

I opened one eye and drowsily

wrapped myself around everything that is

A COLOR UTTERED, EVERYTHING TOUCHED

Scattershot blue rolls too

you know

rhythm-splash-turn over the tongue

bounces off a

jump-bent knee then

up over the head

spherically caressing the backside

all

the

way

down

to ground

Don’t look back

don’t look down

walk forward

close your eyes

See the puddle ripple over earth-cracks

unknown

spoken color seeping

spoken color expanding

spoken color leaving nothing

dry

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Stephen Boni

Stephen Boni is both Ghion Journal's current editor and a contributing writer. His main interest is in analyzing the workings of empire and exploring ways to dismantle and replace systems of oppression. A conflicted New Englander with an affinity for people, music and avoiding isms, he lives in Oakland, California with his wife and young daughter.

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