DOTS, a new poem by Neeli Cherkovski

Thanks to Neeli Cherkovski for emailing his latest, posted below with his permission: DOTS 1 leaves on the upper branches trope backwards, and trip the afternoon into a tremor, tremendous waves weave through us, we yearn for a frenzied silence, the neighborhood hummingbirds will arrive anytime now, it began in a dot, you know? the dog is neither gold or a diamond, it is something you cannot conceive of, it is just a dot, not a dot in time, it doesn’t come at the end of a document, it is your smart and your stupid, and not even that, it is not cold or hot, not right or wrong, it is waiting for us at the end, meanwhile dinner is ready, the car is parked and the bees are in paradise, all is working as it should be, except, of course, for the sucking motion of a black hole and the ever-collapsing universe, it is, to say the least, a bewildering montage the fact is that journalism is dead, poetry is an academic game, love is a contract, war is a necessity the leaves rustle, the leaves roar, shadows of the high branch snag a magnificent plumed bird, no one takes notice, I am left to witness the scene 2 sweet panther, you unbuckled your belt and slid out of your Levies, you tasted the golden dot I offered, it melted on your tongue, you were sleek and handsome until one day I found you in a local coffee house with a vacancy in your eyes you know me, and you had been so hopeful, you were trying to give up hustling on the streets, I used to suck your fingers and caress your thighs and make you moan, you said man you know you know but what was it? 3 a dot or a smudge, a pit or a deep place that takes all matter in hand and flushes it a black hole is a toilet and we are vain beyond belief we are vain and we are animals 4 up on Cold Mountain they compose with a rhythmic wisdom that widens our grief, the snow is deep and we travel within, the snow is deeper within, it is colder than on Cold Mountain, it gets so that we find it difficult to move, and then we burn like a fragile twig in a roaring fire NC