Bruce Whitacre
Else Some mornings I wake up briefly someone else:I occupy another job, another planet or time,as if a dream had opened a door into a parallelsimulation of paths rechosen, retraced,re-inhabited yet unrealizedfrom the proverbial jeweled net of universal possibilities;or it’s simply a past life retrievedin the sharpening shadows of the dawnto vanish before the bathroom mirror. The first sip of juice pushes me onto the day at hand, the tasks ahead, the tasks behind.At the corner a car looms like a great cat.Terror shoves me back to the curb.I stagger. My shorter breath re-opens that morning veil.The jewels flash in their net once again. The revelations of yesterdays’ dawns,I carry them on my shoulder across the busy street,it and I again ourselves, but not merely. Hello, Again To all our reincarnations:the universe you think draws straight linesactually sketches boomerangs. The dimensions radiate a waltz:our present is my future is our future is my present. Big Bang to Black Star, repeat. Hello, again. No past—it is goneNo future—not yetOnlyNOW Briefer than a heartbeatyet stretching beyond the rim of eternity Distilled in this breath. Draftsman to draftsmantracing the cosmic curveto that fragile mirageThat we are will were . . . . . . . Garuda Pantoum Perching on a park bench; timer set for nirvana.Insight whispers in each puff of breeze luffing the trees.Boys pass on bikes...Barely aware. Barely aware. Cool breeze.Topography of green trees cradles blue sky, horsetail clouds. Insight whispers in each puff of breeze luffing the trees.Breathe and then breathe. Soft gaze. Barely aware.Topography of green trees cradles blue sky, horsetail clouds,lawn plotted with blankets and people reading supine. Breathe and then breathe. Soft gaze. Barely aware.That lone oak, stout trunk, tosses its green crown, silver-lined.Lawn plotted with blankets where people read each other’s spines.Flash of winged profile and a hawk swoops into the lone oak. The lone oak, stout trunk, closes its green crown around its guest.Boys pass on bikes, unaware, unaware. Back to cool breeze.Flash of winged profile and a hawk vanished into that lone oak.Perching on a park bench; time out for nirvana. His work has appeared in Cagibi, Impossible Archive, HIV Here and Now by Indolent Books, Nine Cloud Journal, North of Oxford, Poets Wear Prada, and World Literature Today. He has been a featured poetry reader at the Forest Hills Public Library. He has read his work at Poets House, the Zen Mountain Monastery Buddhist Poetry Festival, Kew Willow Books, Lunar Walk, and other venues. He completed master workshops with Jericho Brown, Alex Dimitrov, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, and Mark Wunderlich. He holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and is an activist and advocate for the arts and social justice. He lives in Forest Hills, Queens.