With a View
Dan Raphael

smaller windows, colder teeth,
shadows like bones cover in lichen and moss
not enough heat
protein has so many filters, steps of titration,
cool as a touch

dribbling like a reverse earthquake
to open a boat
to seal a dilemma
spontaneous compassion
as if we were from a similar planet
i see no other way
even the canyons were man made, river sinew
using fingers as teeth
the calliope crashed with a bus
two days without rain, wind or sun

are you me
the street splint in two―my block flew into the air while yours stayed
seeing giraffes is the first excitement I’ve had in years
if I could forget television
cave in the face

nothing but smoke
to turn inside the winds gloves
polpyporous
as sunlight is so many things so fast

pulse like car doors, wings on a neck
inhaling two steps in front of me

Dan Raphael lives in Portland and performs his work throughout the Northwest, in places like Wordstock, Bumbershoot, Portland Jazz Festival and Blue Mountain CC.     His current poems appear in Pemmican, Unlikely Stories, Radioactive Moat, Otoliths and Rattapallax.
Impulse and Warp: The Selected 20th Century Poems, containing works from his first 13 books, was released in September of this year.

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