Poetry

By

James Diaz

The Agony That Forces Us To Speak

What is love

all gone

Jupiter frustrated

then born

where will I be

lanes through soft night

machine in the hills

producing purr

and war

these are the character intuitions

leaving swimming pools

to diners out east

I nibbled your ear

and crossed my shadows

where ever they lay

happy to be crushed

so long as wind was high

and losing ground low

a thousand plateaus of the bonded spirit

rising up through my mouth

this is candid

don’t leave me

so little left to say

but I will say it

burning along side that echo

that carries our ill-fated love

to its house of loss.

Truck Driving with A Troubled Mind

Harry tried to be a trucker

for awhile

but the road made him remember

a little too much

of what he only wanted to forget

white lines

and reds and the radio playing

none of his favorite songs

postcards like “I’ll be home soon”

and “sending you love from the road”

made him only ache at how untrue

it all was

having to make money the hard way

having to blank out

and speed through his life

one hand on the wheel

and another on a warm beer

and he could feel the soul in him blistering

and it all got to be a little too much

what else is there

besides all of this surviving

and getting through by the skin of your ass

and hauling hell through the door

cause it’s trailing your heels

and ain’t nothing in the world

you can do to make it all stop.

That was the year Harry quit trucking

now he’s making meth

but he’s still remembering too much

of what he only wants to forget.

James Diaz

James Diaz lives in Upstate New York. His poems and stories have appeared in Ditch, Pismire, Cheap Pop Lit, Collective Exile and Epigraph. You can follow him on Twitter @diaz_james.