Two Poems
by Gregory Crosby
Mix Tape
Always in search of an oasis,
back in the days that are now just a blur,
suffering from maladies without a cure—
the unmindful hours like a morphine
drip, squeezing the minutes into a pulp,
drinking up days like an addict, a lush:
happy, then maudlin, then mad. Nirvana,
but not; Friday came, another new hole
in the week’s longings. Under the pavement,
the beach. Ah, youth… we were such pretenders.
Time’s the forge, & we’re just the lonely smiths,
beating out a rhythm, a new order
to set against our parents’ bad religion—
desperate to be more than mere replacements.
A Million Lights, Dancing, & There You Are
Olivia Newton-John (1948-2022)
In “Xanadu,” I misheard the lyric
Now we are here as Now we are real.
You told me I had to believe we were
magic, even though I knew there was no
we; still I believed, I believed, hopelessly,
a devoted child of the Seventies,
straining to hear my body talk, to hear
its echo in another’s, as sweet a song
as ever came from inside me, mellow,
calm—a song to hold your hand, although
the hand wasn’t yours alone. Now we are real.
You’ve vanished, & only the song remains.
Even in these dark summer nights, it’s true:
moonlight is the sun’s secret crush on you.
Gregory Crosby is the author of Said No One Ever (2021, Brooklyn Arts Press) and Walking Away From Explosions in Slow Motion (2018, The Operating System). He enjoys cheese on pizza.
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