Two Poems — The Rupture

Matt Hart and Nate Pritts

All full of grapefruit, an afternoon in January—
or is it July, September or March? And who is
this Wordsworth? And what is this Coleridge?

So much is hard to tell of hell, and friendship,
these feelings associated. The dog at my feet
and the coffee in its pot. The flowers, heavy-

cream, and the earlier walk. I must’ve read
ten thousand pages, yet these are my favorites,
yours like a phantom or a bleary-eyed neighbor.

Mine in repetition of werewolves and hibiscus.
Hibiscus this. Hibiscus that. But what I’m even
more fond of saying is Los Angeles by X,

a common language, hit and run. This ode
to unraveling and all else that comes apart, so
hangs in the ether together on paper,

in the margins, the margins both blank
and relentless. Man, I’m so digging a living
this minute, and soon off to China where I’ll

lyrical ballad. Meanwhile, a wonderfull yeare,
the surface of Mars. So much is hard to tell.
So much is hit and run. Perfect, these aphoristic

notes associated. I’m certain that the beer
I’m now drinking is for you. Cheers! The clouds
know nothing of our efforts’ conversation, but the sun

and the birds are their theme and variations. I’d like to
mention also the falling leaves as they’re falling.
Thanks leaves. Your friend, Wolf Face.

Tell me what I’m singing, lonely on the road buffered
with slush; tell me where I’m going when I rocket

this Syracuse into shimmering Poem, when I bracket
you’re You with my Me, take in the Cincinnati

with a big heaving breath. I’m mouthing barks
& yelps to the scatterment, risking this Pritts I’ve got

clenched in my fist & the Hart that you puncture
to spill out the fracture. You can’t stop this

because it’s the signal. This is the single, the lead off
stutter or the blistering fade, hidden track

to streak my broken interior when I inject the clouds
that stopped caring about me, where the weather

infests me. It’s cold in this chest. It’s my soul in the air.
Icicles glinting all around. The maddest mad scientist

& an honorary astronaut don’t know what the fuck
they’re doing but they’re doing it again & again. Amen.

Pour the colored chemicals in a vat & see what blows.
Chart the dark from one galactic suicide to the next.

What are these words worth? Who else would believe
these trees & this sun & this Aeolian gust? Amen again.

I drive my sorry car, kiss the flagging moments as they go.
Leaping joyous over the fence & trampling the fields.

Put on a Coleridge face & bury your branches.
There’s comfort in the tension of wood underground

breaking through, hibiscus & also the dirt not
blotting the hibiscus vesuvius. There’s something bursting;

there’s a bird listening. That’s why I’m listing
some of the differences, & all that sameness, trash heap

mathematics to enumerate the particles, genuflect
to the rubble & honor the happy season we stopped

asking for reasons & listened to the feelings.