Jose Padua: Spaced Cowboy

.

In dreams I am holding a fistful
of sand, letting the grains fall
from my hand, my fist getting smaller
as the pile of sand at my feet grows
higher, lifting me closer to blue
skies, twinkling stars, and the slow
glowing of the moon, because in dreams
nothing is basic. Nothing moves so
simply as in a dream, our legs stranded
on the ground while our arms try
to break free, nothing is so bold
as speech where we say exactly
what we want to everyone we hate,
and nothing shines like
an old Sly Stone LP, spinning
on a turntable in someone’s
damp basement in the 70s
when we finally realized the 60s
were over.
In dreams there is no limit,
we do everything we can;
no beast is too great to be struck
by my fist, no height too grand to scale,
my voice rising like a yodel
or an ululating, even epiglottal
tantrum of art in my city-boy throat.
I shrink, I rise; the bright pebbles
hiss, they roar; and I realize
that you are my instrument.
That this is still my life.
That somewhere is a war
and an angel and a child,
throwing a ball up into
the hoop, hitting nothing but net.

—

copyright 2015 Jose Padua

— Inflatable Marine, May 2015. Photograph by Jose Padua