Two Poems by Nate Pritts

Nate Pritts

Nate Pritts

Nate Pritts is the author of six books of poetry, most recently Right Now More Than Ever.  He founded H_NGM_N, an online journal & small press, in 2001 & continues to serve as Director & Prime Architect for its various endeavors.

WATCH THE GROUND DARKEN

All those rain drops
nudging each other the long way down.
        Suddenly their parts are a lake.
My front yard is many shades of green
but I like this green the best.
Mostly I want to ignore the noise
around me but the crow
with his oily body in the front tree
        yelling
makes it hard. I download
four different Spring Soup Recipies!
& wish the girl behind the counter
at the coffee shop had told me something
about her life, anything. Not even
a secret         just some simple fact.
The flavor of her favorite drink
or how she once visited Budapest
on a mission trip in college.
Above the tree line a helicopter circles
& can't put itself down anywhere nor
can it stop moving in the sky
        knocking all the air
out of the way & in this way
my poem goes on & on because
it doesn't quite know what's happening.
I stared too long at the cash register
screen as if trying to burn important data
on the surface of my heart. $3.23.
Coffee & croissant. That was then
        this is now.                 Is now.
I sit in my living room then move
to the front porch. My house
on a hilll. Everything here getting
darker            & darker.




INTENTIONAL NOISE

In the kitchen my gypsy stew
comes together, any leftover vegetables
mingling, as the glass back door
fogs with heat. I can’t see
what’s happening out there
in the kitchen—the bread rising
& spreading. I obsess
about my decisions on certain days
but mostly act without worry.
I save the regret for later.
It’s probably only possible
to believe in something
the way I want to if you can’t see it.
The observable universe is full
of real but invisible force that helps
shunt light from source to destination,
to bang off something & into
something else. I roll over in the morning
to see Jenny so solidly sleeping
or sometimes only see her pillow
illuminated in actual absence
which is temporary.
Researchers point out
that you actually hear less
when the air is suffused with sound.