Nic Sebastian

Websites:

Publications: Stop by link

Artist Statement: I write poetry and read it aloud incessantly because if I don’t, I start irritating myself and everyone else with bleating questions about The Meaning Of Life.

Poems:

fireflies hatch in summer



the child’s face
is a luminous flower
under gaunt umbrella trees
hung with Spanish moss

she is pale child
of your black dreams
with lake eyes and tendrilled hair
she moves delicately
surely

on a bright grid of passworded
feeling her skin is warm shades
of Thursday with captive undertones
of next year

she thinks in dark chocolate
and climbing roses her small hand
passes without thought

through the steel bones
of your chest cavity and soothes
the bitter red inside it
absently

oh it is bright up here
on the tableland

your petted heart beats
high and the dream child
asks your name

*

Isabella chooses her path



the mules are crossing the river
ankle deep in mud-steeped questioning
the hills loom sharp-cut before us
and you refuse to ride

an owl moon rises and with it
pain so silver it is fog
your arms tighten around my waist
around my brain

we inch through the undergrowth
we are crowding vegetable like the vines
and the jungle trees deafen us
clamoring for their names

now in the darkness
a sudden leaping in your palms
which in daylight are more tranquil
than monks

what is that tapping
in the sweet-scented hollows of your neck
there where the great veins throb
like rivers

*

birthday girl



you called and a glittering lizard came
with delicate ribs and a soft cloak
woven from baby hair

here is my gift to you
it said, closing all the doors
of the year around you one
by one

the lizard sank into the ground
and the Equator rose behind it
floating in orange silk

there is a quiet lake
at the end of evening
edged with muttering rose, it said

kneel there
under the red paper lantern
under the live oak

you knelt there on tender moss
and a sick pulsing
toad crept forth
from among tree roots

you are my deliverance, it said
and the soil darkened into freezing
beneath it, then the shore then
all the earth, blackening

and as your toy breath thinned
and your doll eyes melted, you heard
lizard laughter thick
all around you

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