Dark Sun

“Dark Sun”, “confessing” and “nag, stone”

In Poetry Issue Seven by Frank Heather

Dark Sun, Confessing, Nag, stone

Dark Sun

Throngs of scattered tarot cards

among my lost evenings

spent wandering the hallways

of my stupid apartment

like a drunk god


until passing by a standing mirror

losing myself in the image

& recoiling back upon the familiar

I looked & then I recognized myself

& before reflecting on my unhealth

I could not recognize myself

in my own face

so aged

that I was a heapish pile

trying to understand itself

like a crippled pigeon

standing in the middle of his bedroom

separated from gods by walls as thin as my throat

hate blooming out like velvety tulips

almost every night I stare into that thing

to glare at myself

transmitting voltage thru a heart cord


like the enteric cytopathic human

orphan viruses or coxsackievirus

B into the dark sun that sits

like an irradiant black stone

full of diseased energy with a spinning

blade slowly tracing the edge

of the smooth infected rock

that sits almost literally

in the center of my being

irritating & eroding

a center that I did not know

was there until the scraping started.

this terror towards

time as though there

were some line separating me

& what I can know about

the swirling chaotic mystery

of my past: of those things

or at least some line keeping

that mystery from invading

again to watch in shock

trying to understand why

it buries roots in my celiac plexus.


These are thoughts I actually have during the day

& I want to massage the anxiety-stone in my rib cage

while I meditate on the pillow in front of my bed.

confessing

She leaned over the edge of solitude

& fell

in love
under a pseudonym

borrowed from my blue house

in West Tisbury that only sits still


when the maid comes & nobody pays her

because nobody lives there anymore.


The last time I felt this proud

I was intoxicated by a cold breeze.


Overjoyed by rare euphoria
needing to record my journey
through the terrible day
I saw a redeemable past
where I guarded a prism
of forty nights
& the thawing of honesty.

The difference between confessing & bragging

is not in the words.


“A human being can forget

to exist” & then arise from the nightmares

of brain bursting patricide

& emerge broken by the dream.


Only periwinkle melismata flinging nests of pulp

into the unknowing drama of forgetfulness

understand the language of our unborn twins.


Hanging in the yellow stench

of brittle self-control


wandering thru
happy floodgates
& post-confessional
vistas of suffering
authentic fire
pillars of webs
melting ice
pretense dispersed

may we touch again?

nag, stone

At the center of this poem

a reel of thirty five millimeter academy film

from 1995


in anamorphic anagrams
blue sprockets
wheeling distortion
endless frames
an infinite film
canter of this poem
playing the supermovie
for rooms
with braids
outside world
cars hurtle
towers twinkle
cement cracks
without people
entirely empty
the last film
left on Earth
projecting dreams
direct waves

nag, stone of loss

light pose

holding hands


if you want to read the poem

there will be no poem


solipsism display,

preaching cluttered prey

refrain from growth.


low gig caught in a fast lens
during gusts of ataraxia.
queer thigh, male skald.
the mist of morning grain
bores into the airy forces
millimeters behind our eyes
cross dissolving the speculative epitome
into your open mouth.
About the Author

Frank Heather

Frank Heather is a Jewish poet, originally from the Upper West Side of New York City where he is currently working on publishing his first book Dark Sun and working as an organizer. He received an undergraduate degree in philosophy from The University of Chicago and has poetry published in Down in the Dirt Magazine, poetrycircle, Eunoia Review, Independent Voices, Uut Poetry, and elsewhere.

Read more work by Frank Heather .

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