Summer Night
The wine lights up
like some purple horizon
budding in the glass.
We step out of ourselves
delicately, at first,
then with the madness of lovers.
Life creaks out of our bodies
to explore the dance
of ecstasy and grief.
Spinning into oblivion
we watch the stars
pour their molten silver
over the question marks
of silence and night.
Self Portrait in a Sinking Ship
You’re a beautiful person, beautiful,
but also a fucking recluse,
and all your life you’ve been planting seeds
in a field you won’t remember,
for an abundance you’ll never taste.
Drag the thirst from your green eyes
and leave it waiting on the road.
There are many deserts besides
this one. Each takes a lifetime to cross.
The temple of Judas is in your blood.
You betray yourself. You build your own gallows.
The skeletal trees clack like bone-chimes.
The Baba Yaga is in your dreams.
She is also a goddess. Or maybe a sun-myth?
A lunar aberration?
There’s nothing much to understand.
The mystery astounds you.
Here’s the ocean and your quiet vessel.
Here’s your instructions on how to drown.
Leaf and Blade
I have been down in the dust again
where the spiders turn
on a half-inch of moonlight,
and the weeds grow overheard
like ancient citadels.
As a child I lurched
on all fours through the summer grass
seeking the hidden signature of God
on every leaf and blade.
What I found was a world alive,
infused and overflowing,
wind and stone dancing together
in the elemental arms of light.
If I am a wanderer now,
it's in the secret belief
that presence is everywhere,
that the stars turn their fires
downwards to earth, and the trees
walk out of the darkness
like midnight’s painted lanterns.
Seth Jani
Seth Jani is a poet, publisher and bartender in Seattle, WA. Their work has appeared in The American Poetry Journal, Chiron Review, Ghost City Review, Rust+Moth and Pretty Owl Poetry, among others. Their most recent full-length collection, Field Music, was published by FutureCycle Press in 2023. Visit them at www.sethjani.com.