Chris Nealon

Scenic poem

I guess sometimes I do imagine people as an onrush, yeah

     Uzbeks Chileans Jamaicans Australians
     Also the Brookings Institution

Cyclist! Ergonomic legal and romantic impact all rolled into one
He makes a sharp diagonal to miss me

     — and I step back inside my great distraction, art and politics

Acrylic optics: Washington, 1960
Paintings less as works of genius than as negatives that came out great

     Washington, ‘76: assassination in broad daylight
     The car bomb burns the hooves of Sheridan’s horse

You can tilt a little, standing still, and the technical will seem aesthetic
Your head is mimicking its free-fall

But there’s a slowness in the field, the fields of goldenrod —

     Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt, murdered by Pinochet
     Philip Sheridan, who made a Carthage of the Shenandoah

Winter clouds blow by

          Hey, buddy, chase that man-ray-looking thing, yeah!

Light like the light at the back of the brain

Chris Nealon lives in Washington, DC with his partner Rob and his son Nico. His chapbook The Dial is forthcoming from The Song Cave this summer.