Out of breath - Oliver Keyhani

Cyanotype on paper
18 x 24"
 
Out of Breath
By Nicolette Matt
 
You and me 
And every one we’ve ever been
Circle dance in dusky depths
Of want and need and grope and feed.
 
Ice fins touch
The chill in us,
Isolation
In a crowd.
Wrap a fold
Blinded now
Spirits shroud
Our futures passed, 
Gullets long for what we lack.
 
You and me 
Out of breath,
Pressed between 
Gaping sucking souls unseen.
Drag me down, 
Wrap me round,
Sink me low broken blue
Well below me and you.
 
 
Thirst
by J.N. Fishhawk
​
there will never 
          be enough for all of us
that pour-back from crenelated crater depths
   of planet’s pitted flesh
to the working, wordless 
   titan bowl 
of atmosphere
       and back
cloud-pumped, savage
                       scarce
shadow from the mountains down
       and down 
    
               and down
over hills, over top of trees 
never more
            enough
to go ‘round
to go to ground
            to be cleansed in suckling depths of sandy earth
    not enough
sweat out of air
   not enough
      wrung to be flood
from out the hushed swell of dusk
sky of bruises, sky of cold, yawning dead-flesh sores
        not
           enough
for us
much less the koi
   sliding 
       over each other
sucking accidental air
                   ever more often
at dwindling horizon
of ornamental pond
            here is hunger
            here is want
here is the drowned howl’s eternal pucker
                        never 
enough
                       sweet
       outside of salt and silt
O where will you go
            O shadowed sucklings?
when there is no more skyfall to swell and slick
   all the 
petals of your scales?
                    down from mountains
down over hills
            down over tops of trees

shade upon shade falls
ghost-tones of the sweetness 
                we’ve bled out the clouds and glaciers:
        cornflower clematis iris hydrangea chicory gentian hyacinth indigo 
(all your scales in the shade like stuck petals)
shadow out of mountains
shade up from underside of pond
                    when these meet in the middle of the sweat-less air
what world will be left for writhe and slip, for clutch, for tail-flip 
                of kept, of captive 
                               thick 
sweetwater fishes?