Other Lives And Dimensions And Finally A Love Poem by Bob Hicok

My left hand will live longer than my right. The rivers

of my palms tell me so.
Never argue with rivers. Never expect your lives to finish
at the same time. I think

praying, I think clapping is how hands mourn. I think
staying up and waiting
for paintings to sigh is science. In another dimension this
is exactly what’s happening,

it’s what they write grants about: the chromodynamics
of mournful Whistlers,
the audible sorrow and beta decay of Old Battersea Bridge.
I like the idea of different

theres and elsewheres, an Idaho known for bluegrass,
a Bronx where people talk
like violets smell. Perhaps I am somewhere patient, somehow
kind, perhaps in the nook

of a cousin universe I’ve never defiled or betrayed
anyone. Here I have
two hands and they are vanishing, the hollow of your back
to rest my cheek against,

your voice and little else but my assiduous fear to cherish.
My hands are webbed
like the wind-torn work of a spider, like they squeezed
something in the womb

but couldn’t hang on. One of those other worlds
or a life I felt
passing through mine, or the ocean inside my mother’s belly
she had to scream out.

Here, when I say I never want to be without you,
somewhere else I am saying
I never want to be without you again. And when I touch you
in each of the places we meet,

in all of the lives we are, it’s with hands that are dying
and resurrected.
When I don’t touch you it’s a mistake in any life,
in each place and forever.

Thank you, Tracey, for introducing me to this and consequently ruining my life. I am grateful (and in mourning). 

They'll never take us alive.

Quiet and subtle, we’ll creep into each other like silent little souls, searching for homes. Nothing fancy, just something modest to keep out the cold. Slowly, we’ll search us for something familiar, a warm corner in the hearts of each other, to sit in and sleep in and hide from grenades in; a barricade in the war by the world to turn us into bloodied and battered shells of potential. 

We’ll crawl into each other with our heads both bowed, hoping for floorboards and windows and sounds of breezes and whispers and gentle fingers on faces before reaching for slumber. Heads on laps and faces on faces, gaze meeting gaze, knowing in silence; time standing still with each breath. Heartache transcending through flesh and rib cages. 

We’ll preserve our youth and joy and laughter in all of these cages, fine-tuned and golden. In places the world can’t see, touch, reach. We’ll keep our hopes and our dreams alive, locked away, but still beating. We will be what they refuse to believe, but first gentle quiet delicate peace, radiating, resounding, reverberating through the walls, in each other. 

Shut those wild eyes and sleep for a while.

i am.

Trying to write a poem is horrible. I can't. I mean, I probably could but the poems I'm going to come up with will be so god-awful, the people who read it will have brain aneurysms trying to comprehend why I would write such a thing. 

*

it's just dark
and dank
and it smells like my skull
the notes in my head
they keep me alive
and everyone thinks
i'm going insane

the boat is sinking
follow your leader
simon says
jump

i am a chair
to be sat on
and stood on
for people to prop against doors
and get lap dances on

i am a chair
mono block
wooden
steel
does it matter

i am a chair
something for the tired
and the lazy
and a chair will never complain
no matter how heavy
no matter how long
a chair is a chair
and it will stay in one place
until it breaks
and then
you get a new one

but a table
a table is even more worthless than a chair.
tables are for preparing
and studying
and writing important things on
they're for getting body shots
and dancing
and maps and pens

but a table is formality
and etiquette 
and politeness and demeanor
and i am none of those things
i am a chair