Seekers by Joey Ng

Seekers by Joey Ng

The filtered air feels thin between our teeth,

Filling our lungs, but not filling at all.

As the cold hit my throat, tremors rippled

Within, my pupils dilating and the

Pressures of the sky growing apparent.

Nonetheless we trek on, light in our steps,

Careful not to linger in a blunt state.

The ground shifts with each step, shallow powder

Encasing our boots with soft leaden grip.

Ascending through thick plumes of cotton weave

And long untrodden faces of black lime,

We see discarded steel and shallow graves.

A bright green neon jacketed arm like

The grasp of the undead, the unwilling

Patron of ice glazed over layer by

Layer, preserved and placed in the archives

Of seekers of human necessity.

Of no consolation to us, we pass

By, our eyes transfixed to nothing in

Particular, choosing form over trite

Delineated views of lines and curves.

Our vision is but of one’s arrange,

All-encompassing with its primal views

Of aptitude and leisure we demand.

In time our tired feet come to stop

And we find ourselves perched upon the

Edge of a once great cradle, a split run

Along the grain veering into blind fog.

I stake my cane in the snow and sit on

My throne, another king no one shall know.

__________________________________________________________

Sostenuto

BY LINDA GREGERSON

              Night. Or what

                                       they have of  it at altitude

like this, and filtered

                           air, what was

in my lungs just an hour ago is now

                            in yours,

                                         there’s only so much air to go

                around. They’re making

more people, my father would say,

                              but nobody’s making more land.

                                                          When my daughters

were little and played in their bath,

                           they invented a game whose logic

              largely escaped me —

                                         something to do with the

                                                     disposition

of   bubbles and plastic ducks — until

               I asked them what they called it. They

                             were two and four. The game

was Oil Spill.

              Keeping the ducks alive, I think,

                                        was what you were supposed to

                                                    contrive, as long

            as you could make it last. Up here

                           in borrowed air,

in borrowed bits of   heat, in costly

                                           cubic feet of  steerage we’re

                            a long

              held note, as when the choir would seem

to be more

                            than human breath could manage. In

                                       the third age, says the story, they

divided up the earth. And that was when

              the goddess turned away from them.

Source: Poetry (May 2013).