Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash » Overnight Poems

Say Silver Not Gray

Arambler — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:19:24 +0000

Some words open
too wide to be
swallowed without
choking. I’ve

choked enough to last
into my next
life. It could happen—but
probably not
to me. Once. Who

really knows. Best
to stick with a metallic
beauty and let
urges stew.

Ode to Technics

Arambler — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 00:48:18 +0000

Twenty-one-year-old
speakers and receiver and
tuner and equalizer and memory

of how I would buy
and pay anything
to get closer

to that bastard
of young
with the voice. To replace

it all now
terrifies me. The sound
of anticlimax

is lonely and loud—
the young turned
fifty years ago.

Beneath Her

Arambler — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:47:39 +0000

No chance for nighttime
dreaming—a neighbor’s dance
beat disruptions wreck

any hope
of true REM. Her tolerance

for talking to drunks
has diminished
over a decade in reprieve

till it’s shrunk
to the size of a single shot
of espresso

she’s going to sip
in the morning start-over.

Seen Through Fog

Arambler — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:21:07 +0000

There’s a story behind
Staten Island Ferry
orange. I can’t tell
it but can hear its tone
revealed in a soothing voice-

over through early morning fog.
Routine commuting becomes heightened
by the transcendent
moments before
the marathon begins

on the Verrazano
Narrows Bridge. By a skyline
permanently scarred, by a keel
built with steel
from collapsed towers, by film

and TV footage of our favorite
characters crossing one way
or the other. Sometimes someone
who’s had too much
winds up where he started

without getting closer
to home. Color

declares, or hides, or widens
the channel for multiple
interpretations. Always the same
orange, always the same
distance either way.

Yesterday’s Treasure

Arambler — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 01:13:33 +0000

If I concentrate
on the color
I might wear
out tomorrow, I could forget

my father is
a hoarder. Even now, tubes
of ChapStick (without
microphones), rolls

of toilet paper, stacks
of Hershey bars (dark
chocolate without
nuts) surround him.

Whoever stole his stash
of words
isn’t talking.

Never on a Tuesday

Arambler — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 00:37:51 +0000

The left hand competes
with the right
to give you the definitive
signal. Time out. No longer
a snorer. The quieter the room,
the greater the tension
of finger mirroring finger,
thumbs pressed to white.

Traffic Calmer

Arambler — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 01:07:06 +0000

This solstice is
a cul-de-sac.

I don’t mind losing
my way—no longer ten
miles north of Boston
wondering how houses
and whole streets
can disappear. It only gets lighter
from here, and there’s always
a way out

at that least
likely radius.

Bottom Virtually

Arambler — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 00:58:49 +0000

A skyway floor
tiled in original Lego
red and gray.
Another covered
in carpet patched
together with black
duct tape—I make my connections
above vehicular fray
seamlessly. New patterns
will arise if we can bounce
off the darkness
into true winter
without misfiring.

Cold Knoll

Arambler — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 00:34:35 +0000

If it’s truly darkest
before the dawn and you are
on the other side waiting to be

born, I will not hang
my head low
these long nights. Will dig

a flashlight
out of a dumpster
to shine a beam

on the word
trust

before it’s too late.

Ecliptic

Arambler — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 01:10:17 +0000

“the thin blue flame
Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from “Frost at Midnight”

I get confused about red. Is it
a door, pair of jeans, or a flashing
light I want to guide me
toward the darkest day? Again, the longest night will stretch

into that moment
of optimism when all shrinking
is done and I can almost imagine
the view from the sun.