swifts  &  s l o w s · a quarterly of crisscrossings

the wind’s contradiction
Neil Flory

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Orchards

The iron cabinet ruptures. Collapses in on itself with a shriek, spewing its volumes of old nails
and empty tin cans. Skydivers hesitate. A massive monolithic office building on huge wheels,
careening wildly through the astonished city streets all severe downhill angles to the inescapable
harbor. Orchards produce results, accumulate. Meadows erode, acceleration. Forty broken
barstools in the mezzanine, each half-painted and drowning in rivers of detergent and egg whites.
The clipped yew-boughs strewnabout the yard now that the higher temperatures initially
accumulated in the direction of. Scripts. Until the review. Indiscriminate deaf razor chopping
off rooftops and the shopkeepers shake fists complain to dead cockroaches on the mud-caked
sidewalks and everywhere bellowing into the night’s apprehension the wind’s contradiction
hurling detached mannequin’s arms across fractured tennis courts over the arrogant spires of
blind skyscrapers the wind’s world-shaking breath pushing gargantuan sand-clouds across vast
trackless reaches of ocean the unsuspecting shorelines beyond patterned responses responses are
what they’re trained for trained for oh yes patterns patterns as if all the world is just convenient
patterns the symmetry never disrupted not a line out of place he scowls at the annoying young
man making such sneering sarcastic suggestions but then all conversation abruptly stops as rich
tranquility enters the room without explanation. Your unattempted question. Dropped fumbled
like a lost coin down the deep mine shaft of such. A moment reluctantly. The sleep of cats,
regardless. Intuition. Exploding network of a world; we destroy our homes in exchange for
nothing and no certainties again. Frenzied factories churning out mindsets by the multitude, you
can buy them on any corner for discount rates maybe try one for each day of the week or even
every hour for the struggles of the years at last found him settled into a hard-won peace into an
unusual yet comfortable self he never would have anticipated this time then every dawn he will
hike up the highest ridge overlooking the lake sing of passion time of that which has eroded
away that which endures and that which grows anew sing out in full voice across distance until
the sun finds its peak high in the vast blue meanwhile antelopes pontificate in urban museums of
glass enjoying fine cognac artichoke bundles of kale wrapped in old department-store catalogs
painted jagged lightning-passions testing the mountaintops shattering the defiant glaciers
suddenly every orchard supercharged exploding the rivers overflowing with vivid apples choked
with bounteous apples each one luminous enchanting transcendent populations cry out
convulsing with euphoria mouths foaming with transformative joy and empires erupt with
disintegrating paradigms dissolving veils of haggard dissonance giving way to new singular
alignments of heretofore unknown submarine depths of mind-trenches. Accumulations. Surplus
of parachutes, they all abandoned the plane well before the gorge.Sextants yearn for
awakenings. Events. Paths turn, not so rocky now of the rain. Now that the downpour. Results.
Determinations. That which. Has yet to be determined.

(sticks)

whipped wear worn weathered withered we
burned far long smoldering into flat the faded
painting bland stick figures lost of long coping
of flat tongues eyes scorched beards
unmotion of stopped on the dusty wall under
weak exhausted light-flicker (absurdity
giggles hiding his matchbox again in the old
chest of drawers) why yes there’s a crackle
and hiss of new flame somewhere but I don’t
think it’s in this corridor, perhaps way off in
those cavernous chambers of the old north
wing, perhaps

hail

shrapnel salads
rapidly developing realities seen
only through rusted keyholes
convex erudition unravels into strips
on the nail-littered pavement
recitative language
the photographer smashes his
wide-angle lens, sweeps the
shards into the gorge; fickle
favor, maybe it’s scent
of nihilism

oh well, you can at last
be solid sure when you feel that
mountain hail across your face above
the treeline, when you remember
how often we invoke
the revered
in so many attempts
to invoke imaginary powers

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Neil Flory is a poet, composer and improvising pianist living in the hills of western New York State.  His poems have appeared in Fleas on the Dog, Superpresent, and other journals.