(“plastic flowers”, Ben Aaron)

“small blue flame”


and i stay here,
amid the endless rivulets
drifting towards you

i wonder,
as i always do,
will you see my light?

are you scared?
i repeat myself, worried
you’re not listening,

all testimony makes me cry,
your words, too–

i hope you think of me
say that you are open to

Wind and rain
On shattered glass,
Mondays, tuesdays,
The brutal Wednesdays,
The possibility of nausea and
The inescapable men of fear

Say that you are open to red sunsets, orange, ochre,
The ocean blues of summer, the silent
greys of winter, the adjustments in
length
of spring

And the green, the always inescapable green

Say that you are open to lavender skies, purple skies,
the possibility of a glancing smile, the hope of a Thursday,
an innocent Friday, a relinquishing of the self

Tell me this,
that all water tastes like sand,
that we were always some kind of related,
that my words mean something,

Hold me,
and let go with swift,
engage me in the burning arts of transmutation, the inevitability of
studies at 2 am, our stolen lives

Heal me,
In shades of magenta and helichrysum,
Tell me you will work on my machines too,

“recovering from a blue void of nightshades”


I take to my mouth. (softening)
in mystic waters I remember

That all cobblestones are magma,
every edible rock an earth-fried ember,

music, their forgotten architecture. I get clean
in the fires of history, and people laugh
At my still-wet tears:

everything I do comes through as a joke
because nothing green can grow here.

my soul is burnt

from Novembers of iron and ire, but we’re learning
the spiritual applications of aloe and evenings. At night,
we take a green light

Taste the heal
Of phosphoresis

Ben Aaron @windandrain7 likes to write poetry and look at the clouds. They study the political possibilities of art and culture.