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

white light in the frosty air
David Lawton

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The Winter Moths

In the trembling December evening chill

The winter moths appear
Desperately beating their wings
Against our back door

Reflecting white light in the frosty air

By January
They are gone
While their next generation
Sleeps in the frozen ground
Defying the indifference of cold death.

Like Marty Matz, Man

Intergalactic emphatic battalions
Dance a funky hornpipe to the death’s-head rattle;
Transcendent animatronic distilleries
Brew a heady draught of doom’s last hope;
Cosmic equestrians on crescent moon unicorns
Fire lithium rockets towards a grateful Manhattan.

Roll me a joint like a pontoon boat.
Take me for a sail on Chinese junk.
Fuck’em if they can’t take a joke!

Luminous Philosopher
(for Bob Gallo)

My saxophone teacher was the man in the moon
Enlightening me with his luminescence

Summer salient                  pinto modest
W i d e l y s m i l i n g

Revealing different modality
Borne on sky dive cubicle effusion
Lustrous stream of swinging suspensions

Pack           Pack           Pack        Pack           Pack it in

Taught me if you eat eggs all the time, you know what they taste like
In life           people like this             and people like that

Learned a beard does not a philosopher make
But sometimes a mustache peat moss do bee do bee doo

doo

doo.

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David Lawton is the author of Sharp Blue Stream (Three Rooms Press) and the chapbook Inspiritive (Moonstone Arts). David is a graduate of the theatre program at Boston University, where he was also a Guest Artist in the graduate play writing classes taught by Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott. For ten years he was a background vocalist in the New  York underground band Leisure Class. At the band’s de facto headquarters in the Chelsea Hotel, he befriended Beat godfather Herbert Huncke and San Francisco poet Marty Matz, and was inspired by their embodiment of the written word. David also serves as an editor for greatweatherforMEDIA and collaborates with fellow poets Aimee Herman and Eric Alter in the poemusic collective Hydrogen Junkbox.