Tell Me Why by Jason Baldinger

On the waves of the night
the air so clear, it strangles
what’s left of your thoughts.

Here among tall trees
bugs passing time
buzzing rims of ears
it seems possible that the world just ended.
Who could want more than getting high?

There was a girl I knew once
who lived over Garfield Hill.
She would call late night,
when the alcohol reminded her
she was lonely.

She was lonely.
The end spiral of a divorce,
those hard places
trying to make arrangements with yourself.
The foggy waters deep in mind
where there’s a need to flesh out
where he ended,
where she began.

There are a thousand ways to kill a night.
We find ways to make darkness tolerable.
We sift out what’s needed from what’s wanted.

In the end we’re only broken harbors.
Dreams and loneliness
to keep us afloat.

Dreams
burn out
in the way you smile.

Loneliness
is the only thing
in life that compounds.

Jason Baldinger has spent a life in odd jobs, if only poetry was the strangest of them he’d have far less to talk about. He’s traveled the country and written a few books, the latest of which are The Lower 48 (Six Gallery Press) and The Studs Terkel Blues (Night Ballet Press). A short litany of publishing credits include Blast Furnace, The Glassblock, Lilliput Review, Green Panda Press, Pittsburgh Poetry Review and Fuck Art, Let’s Dance. You can hear audio versions of some poems on Bandcamp, just type in his name.