1 Poem by Dah Helmer

Corrosion

There’s rust inside this dream.
What is known, what is not.
It’s morning now, flat light
through cracks.  Somehow
your lips, your hair, the wet tangle,
crosses time,
movement unfolds

the middle of summer,

fog arrives again.

Your face, your open eyes
thrive in memory, mythology.

The mind’s ledger, too many entries,
too many readers.
A familiar gloom rises, passes
and leaves its corrosion.

I am caught again.

The sky is black, gray, white. This
is how morning sounds: the crows
speak my language. In dull light
I’m faceless. A woman’s
red jacket is a burning body.

The breeze blows its flute, two notes.
A small green banner applauds then again
quietly sleeps.

What is here is all there is, a piece of
this world, this piece that’s too heavy
to lift, too corroded to carry forward.

I lift this dream anyway and try to carry it further
before the gods wake up and tell me
it’s not mine.


Bionote

 An internationally published poet, and the author of two collections of poetry from Stillpoint Books, with a third collection due in 2104, Dah’s poetry has recently appeared in The Sandy River Review, Stone Voices Magazine, Diverse Voices Quarterly, Orion headless, River & South Review, Perfume River Review, Miracle Magazine, Eunoia Review (China), Digital Papercut, and The Muse (India), and is forthcoming in Lost Coast Review, Literature Today (India), Poetry Pacific, Zygote in my Coffee, Red Wolf Journal,Deep Tissue Magazine, Jellyfish Whispers, Dead Snakes Journal, Rose Red Review, Napalm and Novocain, Empty Sink Publishing, Acumen Journal (U.K.) The Open Mouse (U.K.), and KNOT Magazine. Dah lives in Berkeley, California where he is working on the manuscript for his fourth poetry book.