I
Neil deGrasse Tyson told me
I was born of matter formed in a distant and ancient star
So were you
Really makes me wonder that life is an absurdly precious gift
II
I found him
Still warm but not breathing
The room filled with his last labored breaths
I breathed deeply through my nose
The air was cold enough to sting
I have been holding my breath ever sense
III
The Baby Boomers are said to be losing their hearing in record numbers
Too much Rock n Roll
I wonder what my generation
The Millennials will suffer
I fear it will be our empathy
Too much screen time
IV
Be grateful I don’t teach math
Numbers are an alphabet I will never grasp
V
Daddy used to drink corn whiskey and write sermons
Thick with metaphor
Then he stopped writing
I don’t know what he does now
VI
Emoji’s are modern hieroglyphs
And no less important
I can’t decipher either
Sorry not sorry
VII
The eighteen-wheeler is on its side; the car is on fire
The gunmetal sky delivers tenacious rain
I have nothing to complain about in my
Own troublesome blessings
VIII
The Gasconade River
In the Northern Ozark Mountains
Washed me clean of troubles
But did nothing for my worry
IX
Three blackbirds are picking
At a fresh doe’s exposed ribs
They flit to the guardrail
As I drive past
I watch them return to their duty
In the backwards reflection of my rearview
This is an unfavorable omen
X
Pumpkin spice anything is the only problematic aspect of autumn
XI
I opened my eyes for the first time
Under the fixed gaze of the constellation Leo
Before they tore down the Berlin Wall
Before Los Angeles was set ablaze
The internet is a sort of wall
That’s a metaphor—
For what keeps us divided
XII
Music is the most pure way to transmit emotion
Poetry and music may not be siblings
But they have the same grandmother
XIII
On January 26, 2011
My circumstances forever changed
In a spreading pool of my own blood
It was the single best thing that has ever happened to me
Nathanael William Stolte is the author of six chapbooks most recently, A Beggars Prayer Book (Night Ballet Press, 2017) & Ramshackle American (Analogue Submissions Press, 2018) and first full length book, Shoot the Alligators Closest to the Boat (Stubborn Mule Press, 2019). Over the past eighteen months his poems have appeared in Rusty Truck, Poems-For-All, The Buffalo News, Le Mot Juste, Foundlings Zine, Iconoclast, 34th Parallel Magazine, Poets Speak Anthology, Punch Drunk Press, My Next Heart: New Buffalo Poetry, Mutata Re, Howling Up to the Sky Anthology, & Blue Mountain Review. He was voted best poet in Buffalo (Artvoice, 2016). He is a madcap, flower-punk, D.I.Y. Buffalo bred & corn-fed poet. He responds to emails at nathanaelstolte@yahoo.com