Uncelebrated

“They have names,”
I wanted to say to him
—as though he were my child,
as though he were my own and new,
as though I had to tell him such things
and he would have been captivated
by the sweetness of my ageless knowledge.
“They have names,” I nearly said,
and once spoken they would seem
closer to us as if naming were nets
that gathered the stars in,
slipping and writhing in our arms.
My gift to him
—the anointment of celestial nomenclature—
shared between him and I,
if I had spoken.

Noun

I am, become,
B-movie villain;
victim to the whims
of campy dialogue
and a lack of subtle nuance.
Forget you my friend!

The Japanese have to go
Paris to feel this way
—a focalized weltschmerz.
All the world’s not a stage,
but we do seem to spend a lot
of time in the limelight
or apt at handling the ropes.

Shall I grow gills
to illustrate the point?
No way else to effectively
demonstrate a dull ache
in the lower left jaw,
a hollow spot in a full stomach,
the empty clang of a phone ringing.