MATHIAS SVALINA

& Now

From this moment on we have no task but to mythologize
this dust, these red plastic cups
into something worth recalling

after a long night on the freight train, on the oiled snakes:
excreta & blisters that fester into metaphors
of armature, theology.

The man in the baseball cap once wrote a book entitled De Combustionibus,
after beaming at the fresh paper &
sharp edges cut into corners &

the flecks of pastel debris amid the cream pulp stock,
years went by.
He drank a lot of tea.

One night he paged through his book & drew angels in the margins in pencil,
each feather oaring, the flushed face strained.
What kind of god, he thought,

would create such an aerodynamic nightmare to oversee us,
teetering on two unstable legs?
He harbors no love for the engineers.

In Kings there is the story of the man who built an obelisk out of his
                                                                                     childhood fears,
even this God demanded razed.
And what does he do in the late nights,

when thoughts sublimate & the starry sky congeals?
He spits bitten fingernails into his empty
wine glass. He listens

to the emergency broadcast over the radio. But the distorted voice assures
There is no emergency.  

   Contributor's notes
   A Blueprint of Surface Tension
   Brandon Som's Lonely Hotdog
   One Knowledge
   Tearing Down the Old Water Tower

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