David Michael Jackson

UNTITLED

he speaks it plain
like simple cotton cloth

like grain

simple grain in the field

he says it pure

not bundled

not cooked

raw

he says it plain

like the wind

and not the metaphor of the wind but

the

wind itself

making noise in the

trees

***

For Just A Second

Glimpses through the trees,

landscapes captured for a second

from the highways,

these are what is left of your

world when you don’t pull over

and you are left with glimpses

soon covered up with

asphalt and concrete

bricks and mortar

and semi-trailers

Sometimes

***

The Iphone Poem

will I sit later in the coffee shop

are you sitting there
is that you over there
at that table
reading words on the screen
with your backpack beside you

are you on your Iphone

will your finger touch
this word
or this word as we scroll

wheee I roll by
wheee you scroll me the other way
I slide by like there are
tiny bearings under me

I look around

I like the case
looks a lot like mine

nice outfit
looks good

this thing has a good camera

I can see you
are a new visitor
and chances are you will spend
twenty three point seven seconds
and will leave this page

I am that old man
near the window
watching the birds
in the parking lot
and feeling
lost

the birds pause on the
back of a chair
one looks my way

I type these words

your finger scrolls the birds

into view

david michael jackson

So I’ll leave a seed
a spore here on the page
and when you see it it will
take root
in your heart
in the strands of your muscles

but it cannot
can it

The words on this screen can only flicker
here for awhile
and cannot be the wind in the trees
or the yellow and reddish leaves falling from
those trees

Words are only words and yellow leaves are only
leaves and the wind
doesn’t know
they are catching the sunlight

and I’m not so sure myself

So I’ll leave a seed
a spore here on the page
and when you see it it will
take root
in your heart
in the strands of your muscles
and we will pretend it was possible

and this seed will grow
and because these words flickered for a moment
for a moment
maybe
you too can see the leaves falling
and you can say I once saw these
leaves falling and
they were black and they were white
and they flickered for a moment
and fell in piles
and I saw them
lying on the ground
yellow and red