Travis Cebula


Catalyst for Confirmation #2

alone with his           questions,
and aren’t we—
all—


aren’t we meant?
to question distance

he queried the sky
whether it had always been
deeper at its center—

how far away
the indigo—

looks—

on faces,

in waves, and smaller,
the distance                between—
being a young
man and being         an old man
dwindles into
minutiae—

a distance
walked—
a meal
not eaten.
a grey beard
full of scrambled
eggs—

I blink more than
I used to.
I see less of—

the shrinkage                of his right—
his eye and the growth of
hunger trade stories
over a distance from
hunger.           a thirst overcomes—

is this myself?
am I?
within this                 sack of skin—
still. unmoving.
he asks and asks—
when was I young?
then—

five unlit cigars and five fingers—


a hand.

was that                      faith?





then—

can I write this                down?


then—

this coming
down—

this if—

this descent—

Eucharist

to ash finally and to breath binds itself breath respiration as by an unanswered question is survival

Catalyst for Confirmation #3

him and happily then in the sun a river that plummets black like and starry the cloudless sky same the sky same the width of a church and happily forget reinforced to forget to forget flowers of concrete and glass grey to the same life himself committed unwillingly he that she was so beautiful beauty in that he believed for the faithless and everlasting for eternally to proclaim faithfulness for the other fires and flame waits with its rude screen and stony curtains to lick velvet grey hangs in the air for a moment— smoke— the slippers of burnt sandalwood— until with stale incense until with smoke it fills a tin plate this or anesthesia a more lasting pew from which to build something not wood, but flame and if given something to burn—

Catalyst for First Communion #2

an inhalation— this breath, then. we aspire to we. and why must be why.

Catalyst for Marriage #1

to embrace the strange flow of faces in a lunch hour— eyes, brows, glasses, mouths— therefore the City makes a decision that one will be different from before then. be different from same. autumn light testifies to the crisp brim of a fedora, chestnut felt and boiled wool wrapped with black satin. to honor and obey— strip off your less necessary clothes. find a tryst somewhere metal and away from the sun. lean in close with your hand behind my ear. pronounce your name. City. the others kiss, or other and if formed for rather, she’d rather beauty inform uniformity like birdprints in wet concrete.

[lips] [opening] [to] [form] [rings]

Travis Cebula lives and creates in Colorado, where he earned an MFA in Writing and Poetics from Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School. His poems, essays, stories, and photographs have appeared internationally in various print and on-line journals. He is the author of six chapbooks and five full-length collections of poetry, including Dangerous Things to Please a Girl from BlazeVOX Books. In 2011 he was gratefully awarded the Pavel Srut Fellowship for poetry by Western Michigan University.
 
 
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