Humans
We asked what does it mean to be human
over craft beers
and authentic salvadoran burritos
we asked what does it mean
and off the list we crossed
language
and tools
and societies
and selfies
and we discussed how monkeys are capable of deception
like twoyearolds
chelsea works with the monkeys and they have little
personalities like two year olds—
humans, balanced precariously
at the top of a pile of biology,
not enough space there
for two feet—
oh our splendid brains
and the todo with make of them,
but peacocks have feathers more beautiful than our minds,
and birds fly in formations that lick even communist parades,
and even bees can dance
and beavers can fuck up environments,
we used our splendid brains
over beers
to cross them all off the list,
humans,
balanced precariously
on the shoulders of giants,
and nothing to see in particular,
but a lovely view,
and humans taking pictures of it
to remember it by—
Disillusions
I'd have been a mage
but I had to settle, and seek
the closest vocation
to shooting fire
from my hands—
and in this world
as in the game
the fantasy's never final,
and we never admit it,
we run and hide from the day
the fetish leaves our objects
and they become dull as rocks
and the earth proves not a mother
but a dull rock—
and disillusion flows like rivers
to the brackish sea,
from sources on imprecise mountains
dreams like meltwater
dripping,
collecting
in the thin,
clear,
air
You Taught Me
You taught me to watch the birds and the clouds and
I couldn't escape you any more than birds and clouds,
or waking up again—
You taught me the precise meaning of the word "today"
and my deadletter reveries
got lonely and fictional,
my grey daydreams
dying off
like a lot of sad violets—
Oh the sight of the world going on,
the beauty going on with out us,
birdflocks alighting on greenstemmed branches
with their hollow bones
and flying into the sky without us,
and the air in its great masses,
the cycling atmosphere without us,
and night turning to day
and day to night,
and the barn owl prowling
its outspread wings and silence,
hovering in the dark in winter silence,
and the grey clouds pass over the moon,
and it is alkaline and silent,
and the crickets months from returning—
Matthew Dinaro lives in Portland, Oregon. It's dark now but he is too lazy to get up and turn the light on in the room. He blogs on his tumblr and posts poetry on his Bandcamp.