by: Aaron Simon ((Header art by Brandon Locher.))
These peripatetic poems by Aaron Simon meander and dash, taking us with them though experience, perception, story, and sweet regret. They explore the slowness at the heart of the maddening rush of life (“Everything glacial moves/ with a fever”) and the possibility of discovering moments of sublime desire (“…Find an aerie of light/ Make mine a double”).
SATURDAY WITH COFFEE
Here’s the setup:
everywhere you go
you end up outside the city walls,
city of the book.
Open seating plan.
Busboy barrels through
arpeggio of swinging door
followed by distortion.
Cold front from Canada
where they make their own mercy,
revived by the breeze
loosely connected to you.
MAGPIE’S NEST
You should see things
from the top of the world
if only to feel irreplaceable
like prophecy
Thus spake the puddle jumpers
of some grayish-green coast
bobbing in air
as afternoon comes into its own
The landscape scrolls
New World, old habits
Heckle and Jeckle announce themselves
as mostly semantic ghosts
How close is too close
to live near the sun? Find an aerie of light
Make mine a double
MASTERPIECE
Everything glacial moves
with a fever
inhabited moonlight
tailing the car
Trees scattered like matches, both new
and old guard, roiling in a river
formerly a mountain.
Is that so?
A rare engine turns over
on cue, the specious earth
edged in evening.
Aaron Simon is the author of five collections of poetry, including Senses Himself, (Green Zone Editions, 2014), Rain Check Poems (BlazeVOX [books], 2015), and the forthcoming On My Way (Breather Editions, 2017). His recent poems have appeared in Harriet the Blog, NoWhere, and The Delineator. He lives in San Francisco, CA, and works in the financial services industry.
