If all the pencils and pensin the world disappearedI would write your namein the ashes on the hearth.If all the paper burnedinto smoke and computerswent suddenly dark,I would scribble it in the bathin the suds of my oily skin.If the damp sands washed awaywith the tide, leaving the beach alone,I would go to the floor […]
love
Grieving
The Santoku knifeI gave to my brotherbut wish I hadn’tAnd some nights when Duke and Hankare on the turntableI still drop what I am doing 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 Review, The Angle at St. John Fisher College, and 3:16 Journal. George’s […]
Feedback
I am not breaking apart. I am not coming undoneI am not washed upI am breaking open And it’s about time It’s okayI trust my path 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 Review, The Angle at St. John Fisher College, and 3:16 Journal. […]
Out of Nothing
My love for you is gravitationally balancedbut unstable. A system of huge swirling whirlpools endlessly recycled as repulsive forces that expand with constant acceleration, like starlight created from radiationMy love for you is finite and ambiguous Unbounded and forever, decreasing with time, as the universe evolves, it weakens. Simplest of all known universes, my heart for you pounds with the pulse of […]
Falling in Love
Welded inside another mindher words openedfor the first time the way of Zen climbing the necklike a waterfall ofdolomite and gypsummy eyes closedgravity reversedscents of being liftedairborne and fragrant 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 Review, The Angle at St. John Fisher […]
How To Fall Out of Love
If we are lucky, it is like an ant on thesidewalks of Times Square. This memory. This oval shaped, solid, durable, now fixed, singular, squishy, ripping sounding, earthy tasting, leathery,months-long, crimson-colored, knuckle sized thing. 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 […]
How to Treat Water
Store in a copper basin with tulips or rose petals, under a salt lamp. Pray over and be kind to it. Play Mozart andChopin for it.Let it know youas a friend, and always, alwayssay thank you. 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 Review, The Angle at St. John […]
Unsolicited Advice to the Class of 2020
Grip life the way a father holds his son’srib bone after a car bomb in a Baghdad market. Treat it with speechlessrespect. Awake each morning in its belly, licking the mucous from the rubberyintestine of your own ignorance. Chase life. As children run after dragonflies.Unlock the jar and hold it like a prisoner of evolution. […]
Lovers of Truth
Love is the absolute The unsurpassable The final dissolution Without destination May I be the lover The honey in all your senses The softness of the goddess May your heart open broadly Without anything to hold back Just pure deliverance May we see our eyes mirroringPure songs humming And the fragrance of fire Burning Clouding the […]
What I Have Faith In
The bending of starlightand my next breath, givenunto me as the heart is givenunto the chest. Or the summer moon is given unto the Comanchewarrior. And I have faith in you kissing me, under violets and lady’sslipper, in the wild gardens of Acadia, where dancing butterflies dare to land. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, […]