Tuesday 6 April 2021

Tuesday Poem: "Case Against April" by Adrian Blevins

 

For a long time I was absolutely idiotic,
by which I mean I lashed and pulsed

like the cosmos of tissue at present on fire

inside the bodies of my students—

it being springtime, it being the season

of being naked under the cherry trees.

I'm not saying dig a hole and fall in it;


I'm not saying buy a cabin and a nanny goat

and walk around re-naming the forget-me-nots

after the lovers who said they'd slay you

and, well, 
did—for who ever heard
of a plant named Greg? Nevertheless,

sex is laughable; it's ultimately ridiculous;

it's what God invented since he couldn't have


Comedy Central. And still the young people

who aren't pushing their tongues

against the tongues of others

are weeping like babies

being prodded with thermometers

for the lack of good tongues

to lean their own tongues against.


I hear them complaining

about their would-be boyfriends and girlfriends,

and it's like they are all about to die,

like their hearts have spontaneously combusted

and little cell splinters are poking their lungs

and they're losing their balance,

falling like hail


or like meteors with pretty faces,

which is why when I say 
up, they look down.
And though I'm all for biology,

for the divine plan of multiplication

that calls for the pink of bodies

being bodies with other bodies

in beds and in bushes,


I'm sorry for all the time I wasted

being dramatic over the boys and their mustaches.

Maybe the heart, it gets colder.

But maybe the heart,

it learns a little self-preservation

and pulls the shades down

one window at a time. And it's not dark


in here. Really, there's a kind of light

between the marrow and the bone,

and sweet patches of grass to lie down on,

and muskrats and pied pipers

if that's the way you like to see the world,

if to get your kicks you choose to be delirious.

I mean, if you happen to be romantic


and don't mind splitting apart with longing

like a child in a toy store

with everywhere these primary colors

seeming to want to open what could be mouths

and seeming to want to sing what could be songs

if only you could catch your breath—

if only your heart would just stop seizing.

by Adrian Blevins


For more information about the poet, Adrian Blevins, see:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/adrian-blevins

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