2 POEMS by

G r a h a m e  H i n t o n - B a r b e r

Inocea.

Nomolecule iscomplete istheTHING that comprises this moment / NoMORE inthis inthin there is a degree that separates my perception / andit itfits fitsin a FIN separates an ocean / It is a perception of momentum which brings the future- in part- tooooothe
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I feel the unmown grass nettle my spine
as I lie gazing at shape-shifting clouds.
First a duck, then a boat and a bearded man
on a late summer afternoon at our cabin.
The sun arcs west intent on soon ending
this day on my tiny patch of Earth.

An orphaned planet was discovered
floating through space with no light,
no life.

Starlight can shine below the visual
threshold of the human eye.

As a boy I would watch Orion
from the outdoor patio
while my parents drank.

Eventually our own sun
will expand to incinerate
Mercury and Venus at least.

Of Orion the central star of his sword
is the Orion Nebula. Not a star at all.

In the winter of oh-six, the fortune cookie plant in town closed down after a communion wafer company from North Carolina bought it out and it left everyone in town pressed for a job. Everyone still drank as much as they did when they'd had work to blame their drinking on, that didn't change. What changed was how people got a hold of money to pay for their fixes, which made the town buzz a bit more. Smith, Thompson and I were sixteen then, with the usual thoughts that boys have slinking and smiling on their way from their brains down to the most southern tips of their extremities. We had those thoughts every second of every minute and we always thought they'd stay thoughts because between the three of us, the best our combined physical features could have made if put together would have resembled something similar to a deer's ass. So we did the most logical thing we could think of to turn those sticky thoughts into action. We started a band. I played bass, Smith played drums, and Thompson sang. We got a gig at The Nose Job a few miles away in Glamadis because Smith's sister knew one of the sound guys, and we told him we could play the first half of some record I can't remember.