At the science museum they have a simulator. This one puts you on the surface of the Moon.It’s fun and unique for an adult. For a 3 year old,it’s a little terrifying. With every bump and shakeof the machine, he holds my shoulders a little tighter.I tell him we are almost done and he says “almost, […]
George Cassidy Payne
A Good Kiss
A good kiss smells like nectar-filled factories and feels like skin wrapped over a corpse. Erupting from long-patient seeds,it stands still in the mouth, as eyelids movewith the vaporizing speed of a crouching cougarat a midday spring. Shimmering ghostly white. A good kiss is petite, luminous, and stingless.Buzzing like undisturbed bees sipping from the edges covered with pink and emerald beadwork, […]
Stormy Monday
It’s as if a cat is unworthy of grief. After all, there are so many dying children. But some nights I pull into my driveway,still hoping to see him. I look up at the skyand wonder if it will snow. I examine the tracks in the yard. Is he in the landscape anymore?I turn the car off and […]
A Poem Written on the Day Mary Oliver Died
A poem is about being ready tochange your mind. Mary Oliver knew that. Today, Mary Oliver died. And whole morainespale blue with blossoms swept the hillinside. She was one who knew boundaries, and whathonored her own name. Deviating into sensibility, she was one who made honey mesquite with words-so hard scanning the darkness, like a small, […]
From the Beginning
There is a hushfrom the beginningof time, where youcan hear yourself blink. There is a hush,where a minute agowe were two million milescloser to this cluster thanwe are now. There is a hushwhen we realize how it isthat we belong at the limitof the powers of observation. There is a hushwhen the universe evolvedfrom the […]
Primitive Religion
Like you, I amjust seekingan experienceof being alive. Stirred, smoothed,and thickened, freshas a rosemary sprig, my primitive religion feels strained througha sieve on topof a cooled caramel base. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications as the Hazmat Review, Moria Poetry Journal, Chronogram Journal, Ampersand Literary […]
Sirius or Capella
Fresh mint is nothingbut clusters of stars,and a screwed top jarmeasures the limit ofman’s contemplation. Just slice the goat’scheese and a singlegalaxy has divided. Decorate the regionof the sky with berries,and blend all the confusion which still exists. Gently fold into thesweetcorn theemissions generated,the mango mixtureof brilliant vindication. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from […]
Genesis of Clouds
Died broke and forgotten,each dream is a phrase in slow motion,a long sampling of the moon awakened.Down beneath the turmoil of sixty thousandmillion years of not fitting in, we are driveninto the condition of atoms- brittle as flat leaf parsley crushed like stoned salt.Deep in a dream, the mind is the genesis of clouds, rising above the […]
The Vineyard
Cooked gently by theluminescence and blendedin the blackberry liqueur ofelder flowers and arrowroot,the sun is sometimes a flashat the bottom of four stemmedglasses. Skinned side down thesweet songs of our crazy sorrows.Deep time, a sweet orange blossomwater, a fluid that cannot be named. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has […]
That it May Start in Balance
In order that it may start inbalance, we can see onlya small part of the total universe-that mystery greater than death;and for the sake of balance, we cansee how love disintegrates and by whatmeans and at what time it was created.Crossing the boundaries of physics,reaching the final barrier of knowing. George Cassidy Payne is a […]