Heir Apparent

Issue #45 April 2017

Joshua Edwards

ROMANTIC SECRETS

1

And down in the silence, rising on the fear in courage, an image troubles the heart.

17

Whatever imaginary world the future late present of day is, I always

will think of a friend and of a flower.

38

Drunk and bleeding heart, between beauty and dream, when the enemy is whatever the lightning and starlight free, all the blood from light is our cause.

64

This oblivion, that enigma, this ruined work, and in the manifold longing for modernity: certain gods of beauty.

82

The infinite and icy harvests.

88

What is death? We face mysteries of darkness.

96

Written in a dead rage, imagination has to cry.

105

Like obligations, tears and tears, eternity and signs.

112

What of the source or of the flame behind the young?

124

Cave without reality. Become before another time, empty of work, trapped in youth, when the years end like friendship.

143

Heart, your happiness is volcanoes.

148

Moon: grenade of being, silence.

153

I thinks the mirror.

157

Love and song: frontiers.

161

What is irridescent in fruit? The pleasure of the orchard?

Winter? The energy of the summer? The light from the sun’s

interned power?

184

Bread for the dead.

188

Between the strange, restive sea and life, only this feast, only the sorrow of desire.

203

All stars are gigantic. With luck, I can fade into the enormous heaven.

216

The broken body of human love lay in bed, but strength is in its voice. The murderer is powerless. Speech promises beauty.

TRASTEVERE

Fresh fruit and pig legs,

while three weeks waiting

for books about Mussolini

in the Vatican.

         Sleep amidst

lists of verbs, dreaming

of Rome, that hated

Roman city, like the famous

painter who only answers to Master.

“Too late to move to a farm.”

     How differently time

passes with a window open.

TOUR GUIDE

Without war,

the whole world in sweatpants

or at least jeans.

The dark been here before, and if

you see it arriving

again, during siesta say:

go into an opium trench

like the ancients, get a neck tattoo

of heaven under a knife, eat

everything, and burn all the books

so the smoke hides

where you’re at, what you want.

SPANISH SADDLES

Between those

islands as thrones,

queen and kingdom,

and the gardens

of black stone weights

the size of heads.

To measure faith,

the blood or soul

comes apart like soil

in some tilled fields.

The hidden parts of

the eyes stay young.

VOLCANO

In the landscape of

Love there is life

Drawn as a circle and

Over the mountain

The shape of conspiracy

Is two green shapes

Of two animals

Lending their ash

To the sky’s final light

To the true end of night