Take a Balloon and Go Sailing
There’s a subtle art to splitting yourself in two
and projecting your spirit onto a far-off ridge
or into stratospheric clouds
to always analyze your extra footprints
around the spots where you stumbled,
to always measure your wavering walk
against worn paths disappearing straight into sinkholes ahead,
and you shouldn’t overfeed your astral projection
or let it be fooled by feeling like a god
floating in the sky;
if it gets too powerful
and its cravings too large,
it’ll tear through your memories
in a search for spiritual sustenance,
digging further and further
back
because your body’s been stumbling over barren plains in a trance
between dirt hills and bare trees,
beneath power lines like horizontal blinds,
that are drawn across the sun.
Paul Edward Costa is a writer, spoken word artist, teacher, and the 2019-2021 Poet Laureate for the City of Mississauga. He has featured at many poetry reading series in the Greater Toronto Area and has published over 60 poems and stories in literary journals such as Bewildering Stories, Lucent Dreaming Magazine, Former People Journal, POST-, and the Gyroscope Review. His first full length book of poetry The Long Train of Chaos was published by Kung Fu Treachery Press. He curates/hosts several poetry series and has won the Mississauga Arts Council’s 2019 MARTY Award for Emerging Literary Arts.
Emerge Literary Journal 