Mark Ari

Write Your Name on My Eyes

write your name on my eyes, breathe into me a kiss. distill the substance of my dreams for a draft to work warm the white soft mud into form. touch my mouth. the tender season here leans into the cold and water slow in marsh grass becomes white ash and mulberry. taste the clay of my lips. finish me. if a kiss does not last forever, it is not a kiss. If you do not die endlessly into it. we are made of time and time is not real but o, how it moves.

Under the Influence

I am under the influence.
I should not drive a car.
I should not handle
sharp objects
or heavy,
dull ones.

I am under the influence.
Deeply under it.
Of winter
Fog.

I am under the influence of Mark Rothko.
Of the Lone Ranger and Tonto and Sky King and Fess Parker and George Reeves.
Of Mr. Wizard and Mike Mars.

Of invisible ancestors
of Chagall, Blue Rider and Montparnasse
of Bob Dylan and Brookyn and dead rebbes.
I should not wrestle alligators
or hippos.

I am under the influence of the short-lived perfection of apples.
I should not climb a tree
or plant one in the electric soil.

I am under the influence of blended whiskey.
Of day old bread dipped in six-bit wine.
Of caffeine and hot sauce
and Soutine's meat.
I am under the influence of frightened people.
I should not run with scissors.
I know that.
It would be a bad idea.

I am under the influence of a chain of springs.
Of no laughing matter, my friend.
Of hangers and needle points.
Of belt buckles.
I am under the influence of lost causes.
I am under the influence of Ashcan and Cobra.
I should not smile at babies.
I should not sail a boat, handle heavy machinery or talk to prostitutes.
I should avoid rooftops.
I should certainly
avoid
rooftops.

Breasts.
I am under the influence of innumerable breasts.
And collar bones.
Of necks stretched like the scraped residue of hash pipes.
Of Miles.
Of cold fusion.
Of bald lies and hidden meanings.
I should not play with matches.
I should not play with strangers or my food or with words.
I should avoid accidents of letters.
I should seize my pen from my claw like a frog catching flies.
Then I should hold my tongue.
For a time.

There’s Nothing Here

There’s nothing here, I tell her,
but purple
hyacinth, clocks,
and winter’s white
candles.

Our eyes are whispers.

Dig your toes into the earth, she says,
until the dirt
in your spit is a rage
of wildflowers.

I am a giant, I say
and a prayer
in a note
on a phone like a bed
made of moonlight.

The sky is flashing
blue gin
and all around there
is light,
wild garlic, and
the sigh of marsh grass
on marigold.

Mark Ari is a writer, musician, and visual artist. He edits and produces EAT audio chapbooks and is an award-winning professor at the University of North Florida. More at www.arifiles.com.