< Issue 5 >
A Breath of Air
by Jeffrey Park
In the privacy of my masculine living space
I make like a Greek figure on the border
of a ancient map blowing out the divine
breath that raises waves, washes over
islands, sends shapely craft skidding
across all the oceans of this flattened world.
Blowing out and out and out with no thought
for how it all might end, heedless
of those other vessels, the thinly walled ones
in my temples; dreadful how my eyes bulge
from my whitened face, my toes curl painfully
deep into the carpet pile as I try
to blow just a few seconds more, huffing
my way into the annals of achievement
for longest continuous exhalation on record
(ha! those ancient demigods kept none).
A mad attempt no doubt from an untrained
amateur, but with my orbs screwed up tight
I try as hard as I can to feel those ships
moving away from me, speeded toward
their foreign ports of call. And surrounded
by my own small patch of yellowed parchment
I know a certain kinship with the mighty
wind machines that gird distant rocky shores.
A Breath of Air
by Jeffrey Park
In the privacy of my masculine living space
I make like a Greek figure on the border
of a ancient map blowing out the divine
breath that raises waves, washes over
islands, sends shapely craft skidding
across all the oceans of this flattened world.
Blowing out and out and out with no thought
for how it all might end, heedless
of those other vessels, the thinly walled ones
in my temples; dreadful how my eyes bulge
from my whitened face, my toes curl painfully
deep into the carpet pile as I try
to blow just a few seconds more, huffing
my way into the annals of achievement
for longest continuous exhalation on record
(ha! those ancient demigods kept none).
A mad attempt no doubt from an untrained
amateur, but with my orbs screwed up tight
I try as hard as I can to feel those ships
moving away from me, speeded toward
their foreign ports of call. And surrounded
by my own small patch of yellowed parchment
I know a certain kinship with the mighty
wind machines that gird distant rocky shores.
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