I disobey
the wind
when examining
this interglacial verse
and the way
I am
in truth
so human
set to hum
my palinodes
like a riverbed
Gigantic
I am not going
to call this
resistance
but maybe the actual
slipping into
darkness like
the cigarettes
the men outside
the deli smoke
between pulls
from a bottle
of mamajuana
But I am only just
reading into this
radiance as the
defiant soliloquy
made exactly
as it should be
alone and quiet
lasting only
for the last
of us who
will cash our
paychecks for
a view of the
stars uncostly
and totalitarian
I forgot the time
I needed to be
at work
while making coffee
It’s early
enough to know
that without asking
the Earth keeps
breaking into
smaller parts
I name the morning
consumption
Or the unbearable
call to be productive
I just want to think
about us in bed
as we roll closer
into each other
and I see the scar
on my knee
from falling
on rocks at the beach
trying to be brave
for my brother
as he walked
the tide pools
for the first time
after moving
from Pittsburgh
to New Hampshire
I wonder
were they
always this
purposeful?
We never found
a lobster
Never understood
how lungs work
Do we just
keep going?
Should I keep going?
I don’t think
that’s philosophy
Can I slow down
for a moment now?
See life for
its exchanges
The fission of
wage-time
free-time
time-to-destination
labor-time
divided by
value-time
We get closer
to a revolution
when we start thinking
about time
as pleasure not
commodity
Its value a temporal
ghost haunting life until
we stop time
as material
and bring it back
from its exchange
That is to say
from the time
it takes for you
to read this poem
I will have made
approximately $ .50
-
Nicodemus Nicoludis is a poet, adjunct professor and the managing editor of Archway Editions. He is the author of the chapbook Natural History (rot house books, 2018) and his work appears in Potluck Mag, Small Orange, Maudlin House, Chronogram, Reality Hands, Burning House Press and elsewhere.