THREE INDECISION SONGS - JOE MILAZZO
Pedro Figari. “Indecisión”.
Indecision Song
Maybe today is the day
my language leaves me
Its sunglasses and retinue of
herbal supplements laid
out on the ruthless tile flush with what
suddenly I can only call my omphalos
its chinos that didn’t fit
a month ago and notebook
of raw waveforms
Writing tempts me to try
and stump the diagrams inside
My language won’t go so far as
to depart but it will tap a toe
to a later and later baton
An intermittence
unable to stay
Indecision Song
packing up even the humblest
accommodations reveals how much natural
light our rage for belonging squanders
before separating ourselves from
the clanging acoustics of
stripped beds and bare shelves
we mopped a message to the next
tenants across the floor
at the cost of a titanic backache
we put all our sincerity into
those words never supposing
that the wax would drink them up
never figuring that our idioms might not
overlap with theirs never comprehending
how like us they would read
therein a sadly not-unfamiliar story
of perseverance streaking between
soiled baseboards above which I remember
a clutch of moth’s eggs
clustered like infinitesimal grapes
prismatic as a pencil lead
within the one warm frame
morning’s early had laid aslant
upon a passing wall
I remember a lack of oxygen
then the blood rush of knowing it
would come to this knowing that
knowing keenly
in the throes of purification
Indecision Song
to feel out
past or on ahead
of the fog
of control
a rotation of advantages
a performance
of governance
put down the hours
grade one’s themes
thwart apart
domed gnomon
gnomic sun
Joe Milazzo is the author of Crepuscule W/ Nellie (a novel), The Habiliments, Of All Places In This Place Of All Places, and, in collaboration with Eric Lindley and Miwa Matreyek, Words In Danger Of Falling Out Of The Vocabulary. His writings have appeared or will soon appear in Black Warrior Review, BOMB, Denver Quarterly, Fence, Prelude, Puerto del Sol, Texas Review, and elsewhere. He is also the Founder/Editor-in-Chief of Surveyor Books. Joe lives and works in Dallas, TX, where he was born and raised.