New Poem: Ode to Kanawha City

As I currently work on my second collection of poems, it's true that it may be years before they see the light of day. So I wanted to do something I've never done: share a previously unpublished poem on the internet! An ode to a certain time and place. Enjoy!

Ode to Kanawha City

Here is eternally verdant,
this humid memory—

entering a valley for
freedom of plains.

Small flat vastness by foot, on bike;
we were seeking something like transcendence

in car. Heeding machine as it consumed Avenue, losing all form through the window.

What grew outside seeped in:
plump, pallid suburban fig; butter-shaded pollen;

rampant mint bourgeoned by season.

(Wild as it is in Beirut, wild as it is anywhere.)

And what grew inside, poured out: sonic
meditation, skin shuddering bass, perpetual

tones like cinema. All is drenched emerald,
overwhelming leaf canopy, a West Virginia hue—

particular in depth, so sublime and subliminal, the color
of paradise few see.

Still I seek shades of Kanawha, City at the center of everything, far from
anywhere. Other worlds spin by proxy.

Nothing ever happens here but us, souls
eternally verdant, sipping from the river

where our circle completes, still going round and round, eternally.