[The following is one of my favorite correspondences between Django Fontina and Dopio Wheelsworth. I just stumbled upon it in a water-logged shoebox in the crawlspace under my roof. Couldn't get my scanner working, so I had to take a pic with my phone.]
Dear You, or Belulino,
As promised, long overdue, here’s one about my first day of work, kind of.
Sliding on the station floor wax
Everyone minds because I have sharp elbows
And seem ready to use them
Business means gripless polished shoes.
I take note that my nervous sweat beads are
Inversely proportional in frequency
To the red neon minutes running short on the board
But, scurrying by, nobody minds,
In a rush but slow-motion seeming,
Like how I picture futuristic networks of driverless cars––
All flocked in crosshatched weaves
Of awareless goal-seeking barrier
I take it personally,
Like everything else that gets in my way.
I have a flashback to my brother, rolling me up
Maliciously, in blankets of burrito prison.
Consequently, I love freedom of velocity.
Then I listen to the Asian crack addict violinist
Shred digital Beethoven rock, which registers nothing
Of cosmically weightless human anxiety.
I slow down instead of falling,
Or stiff-arming the emaciated old woman
To leverage myself.
The train comes and goes
Without me.
I arrive late to work.
But nobody minds.
Yours,
Django Fontina
Dear you, or Belulino,
9 odd years is never too late. You got me thinking about that night we came up with this game, remember? Here’s how I replay it:
Of banter & black humor,
We belt ha-has at the thunder,
Challenging dreams to douse like storms
Under which we carry no umbrellas.
I like space with no owners
You like windows without walls.
A woman fresh undressed is like
A letter read out loud.
The warming chill of skins in cahoots
Like when a fresh bed quits being cold
Or the fingers of a blizzard breeze
Brushing flushed cheeks falling through sleep
I feel piano keys of spinal chord
Plucking indelible adventures
Out of strings without a place.
I like music whose lyrics I always sing but never know.
These whenless unnamed artifacts
That remind us of the present.
Yours,
Dopio Wheelsworth
Thanks for your poetry, keep posting!