Alternate Perspectives
For instance, that a graveyard is a garden
too, which, though seeming still, careers through space
on a great round spheroid ship squashed in at poles
with flaws, dents, bumps, like an uncultured pearl,
a natural jewel. And when a soul’s turned in
it fertilizes futures with more carbon
and sand to make more pearl, emerald, diamond.
Or that Earth’s but a blue-green stud, a bauble,
presumed to be cherished by Someone Who
keeps us in His curio box. And if He
has gotten at least one ear pieced, that we
might be heard—or, if plugged into His navel,
be warmed by an abdomen’s circulation,
digestion, breathing, pulses of a heart. . . .
_____
If Each Star
If each star
were a Soul
that might explain a lot—
but no matter,
for each certainly
acts
as if it were.
And if there
were a God
it might explain a lot—
like all matter;
so we, certainly,
act
as if there were,
notwithstanding
the indefinableness
of the terms
above.
_____
And All That All
And all that All
has ever been:
the junkyard dog
chained out in back
with just enough give
on his leash to make
him proud to think
he catches his own food.
_____
Poems from “Fires of Heaven” (Shanti Arts, 2021)
James B. Nicola’s nonfiction book Playing the Audience won a Choice magazine award. Recent nonfiction can be found on-line at Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, Unlikely Stories and Lowestoft Chronicle; fiction, at Neither Fish Nor Foul, The GroundUp, and Sine Qua Non. The latest of his eight full-length poetry collections (2014-23) are Fires of Heaven, Turns & Twists, and Natural Tendencies. A graduate of Yale, he has received a Dana Literary Award, two Willow Review awards, Storyteller’s People’s Choice award, a Best of Net and a Rhysling Award nomination, and eleven Pushcart nominations—for which he feels both stunned and grateful.
