September 4-10, 2017: Poetry from Holly Day and Dan Hendrickson

When Freedom Becomes Unbearable

We invite the government to read
our minds, the aliens to beam
new instructions with jagged
fingernails and broken glass
 
Give us a purpose! we shout
into the night sky, praying that
at least one cruise vessel bent
on world domination is heading
 
for Earth. We want to make wallets!
we plead, eyes on the stars in
supplication, heads matted
with drying blood, fingernails
 
ripping at our tin-foil hats and flinging
them into the air. One of the tiny moving
pinpricks of white above us must be
an alien spacecraft, aiming subliminal
 
messages into our prefrontal cortexes–we dig
into our scalps with the hope of making
mind control that much easier for our oppressors
the communications satellites circling overhead,
our hands outstretched, cracked and broken.

Summer Love

The places he’d been, with convoluted names
were as exotic as the places he’d lived
men bent spades into birdhouses
 
I wanted so badly to be with him in Colorado
to stand in the exact spot where four state lines met
and survive it all. He kept saying, Next time, next time, I promise.
 
I waited by the lake for him to come and get me
visions of Indianapolis burning holes in my brain
but he never came back to get me, never took me away.

Tesla in Colorado Springs

The weather at this altitude 
suits you. 
Fresh, clear mountain air already
crackling with static
electricity.
Up here, in the evening, bolts of lightning discharge in all directions,
leaving you unbowed.
Filled with wonder, sure,
but this is a jig you’ve called yourself 
many times before.
You’ve felt, up close, it’s raw energy coursing through you,
sparks arcing sprightly off your pressed satin vest.
Blasts of powerful ozone
emanating off sheets of charged metal mesh.
Still, you watch nature’s performances in blissful silence.
Never feeling the need
to steal the thunder of another.
You recognize artistry when you see it.
The bolts that surround you naturally
hold you in thrall,
while your thoughts zoom
through clear vacuum tubes.
Your mind a Mercury receiver 
for previously
indecipherable signals.
It’s this secondary resonance that allows you to brush away static casually
with a wave of your graceful hand.
A natural conductor
calling the world around you 
into tune.