Matthew Caretti
Synesthesia
So soon like children’s laughter perched
atop the carcass of a beached whale
or Christmas song harmonies sung
in the swelter of South Sea islands.
After all these swift years still
uncertain if the sea is more sound
and fury or the wrinkle I feel of a soft
blue sheet tucked into the horizon.
Hearing the waterfall I find a dry wall
of lava rock, where the blowhole ruptures
a seasalt tongue, angel terns glide
into thunder and the sated dog’s bay
becomes the moon. Suddenly no stench
from the chuckety-chuck of the cannery
nor the coral reef riffing at ebb tide
as the slow arch of pastel rainbows.
In this world on fire with figurative
innuendo red is all that makes sense,
a paroxysm of paradox ringing into
each false equivalency on the news.
Altar of Unrest
God has left us with nothing.
Where is my father? Dead
Now fifteen years. More. Not
Gone gentle. His questions
Beget further questions.
A garage full of boxes
And paradoxes of love. All
That his sons won inside.
Tarnished trophies and a first
Baseball mitt. Photos of forgotten
Worlds we once visited—
Station wagon stories with
Cigarette burns, the smoke
Thick with laughter and tears.
Where is my father now? God
Might know a thing or two about
Love for a son. But this father
Sacrificed himself on the altar of
Unrest, resting only in what
He could never know. No occasion
Though for the insoluble loss
Of time. Of wars at home
And abroad. Another ration
With smokes and rusted tins
To heal the wounded
Heart of a million lies. No
Not this. Not this ever
Again, the light of love lost
In some distant jungle. Too far
Away. I, …
I don’t know the way. Where
Is my father?
War Poem
For Victoria Amelina
Dandelions bloom atop
old graves, dander and
duft wetted by dewdrop
nights. Mars rising
with martial spirits
conjuring a volley
of harsh words
from Hardy’s old ghosts,
a firing into distant
channels quarried
ever closer.
Cyber tunnels
the latest hack
hacking heroes into
ones and zeroes
some returning home
to lose all over again.
Sitting on the street
corner an alone self-
medicated marine
burned by burn pits
anointed by those old ghosts.
No AV presentation
at the VA to save this
band of brothers.
The complexities of
a military industrial-
ized mistake warfare
for fairness that might
makes right. Injustices
juxtaposed with
conscientiously objecting
to the latitudes of pain
most often paid in poverty,
yet some move instead
on a gentler path.
The gift of finitude
delivered too soon
to objectify any losses
lost in the hot desert
or winter taiga. Only
an audacious few
find themselves
looking down a barrel
from the wrong end.
No flowers this time
to stuff inside
or planted graveside,
but add to this title
“anti-”
She made poetry
of missile defense
systems of loss. Batteries
of verse bringing back
the dead. Or almost
so. Again those old ghosts.
Trembling stars not seen
from the bunker. One
shining ever brighter,
burning away fear,
yet more distant
than 37 light years.
Matthew Caretti lives and teaches high school English in Pago Pago, American Samoa. His collections include Harvesting Stones (2017, winner of the Snapshot Press eChapbook Award), Africa, Buddha (2022, Red Moon Press) and Ukulele Drift: Poems from a Small Island (2023, Red Moon Press). His prose and poems appear regularly in Tiny Moments, Frogpond, Modern Haiku, contemporary haibun online, Cattails and several other journals. He is the recipient of a 2024 Touchstone Award for Individual Haibun presented by The Haiku Foundation.