Autumn Poetry | October 17, 2021

Mind-Suns

by Alex Light

I

A mind-sun, a mind’s morning 

The flowers grow with the speed of dreams: 

When physically they would wilt,

inwardly they’re out the window and free

Questions throw off answers as pollen

The full scene’s inside the seed

Questions—the real jewels of knowledge 

The world alive with uncertainty

II

Have we met before?

Each changing day

paints your face in a new way

Let me see the weather brewing inside

by your choice of conversation.

Every different facet you present, and the constant

is something invisible

The recognition of which

tells me we’re eternal

III

It’s been five years since I left you

Breaking the silence was a nighttime visit

Your golden body in the leaping of the dance was as my very soul

‘The strange, untouchable health of his body’ 

was by your self embodied, again, 

as it was in the beginning. Redeeming.

Soulmate of continental distance,

I don’t have the words to show 

how one dancer enflamed both

‘fore life demanded rebellion

Soulmate of renunciation, 

I can only show there is an ‘I’ here now

in place of explanation

Two pairs of feet casting up mountains 

with each step. Two minds and two fountains,

Inward-gazing lovers become now Janus’ countenance

Thrills of individuation

will see at times through an inner lens

what we’ve become

Will see through corridors of our soul

To our shared mental sun.

IV

I must make of this song this moment the artifact a shining jewel, 

hold it close to my chest for the warmth left wanting in this early winter,

light of a dream made true by the power of men in love.

My inevitable death finds inevitable remedy, 

the living memory, the single night thriving with me to unite,

when men in love knew what was right

They surprised an unshaken faith to life, they made a shining pearl

Embraced the sleeping world, its cross section swirl

is the stand-in for deserted ruins of a mind robbed of meaning

I must remember this feeling,

For every starlit drive alone with my body’s breathing

For every bed left cold is ripe for dreaming

V

someday I’ll have the words for this.

now is a track I’m on

and the effort is

to walk with the effort is

not to break the track at its spine.

something in me breaks open instead 

and it sighs

VI

it’s my own bird-form

my own insecurity

the uncertainty

of the next thing

from within,

rising,

unconscious me shining,

in the darkly light,

of the dead house

in the evening

VII

Satan didn’t do the job well enough 

Look instead to the act of the human

Given the reins to reverse and build and

exert change from the god-given animal,

by imagination take the free-fall 

and point it up.

The lycanthrope,

The angel,

Satan-like, will outlaw faith 

when confidence infers:

God could only ever speak through this sensuous flesh. 

Only ever by an equal could he be understood. 

Love requires being understood.

VIII

Every song pushes me further

Every drive takes me deeper

into my heartbreak, no, even deeper

to its answer

Folding power into evening road’s black:

Another route made by looking ahead 

instead of flinching back

folds into an insewn pocket

my reservoir of pain-made seeds

blessed to live

to become a reservoir of life all my own

it’s sharpened my mind

that immovable object that lodestone

that monolith of truths inescapable

of memories waving in full blossom

of Knowledge drawing her golden line

for me to walk along.

Alex Light is a musician, podcaster, writer, and producer of The Mandarin.