The Gift of Presence by Jim Davis

The Gift of Presence by Raymond Saunders, 1993.

The Gift of Presence
   
To engage in the absurd is a privilege

of reason. I was born into a feudal world

is a universal claim. Jazz into birth, you:

Miles rides a train made of birds or

Dizzy named his sassy Ella “cat” since

there has to be machines to move machines.

The final fifty pages of a novel exceeding

800 pages make you consider your life

[        ]. It takes a crane to move a crane.

Men’s brains are semi-permeable. I’m not

ready: oar, knots in the rigging, hole

in the bottom of a boat not sinking:

two hollow suns walk into a bar, one says

Jim Davis


This was written for the 20 Poem Challenge.

JIM DAVIS is a student of Human Development and Psychology at Harvard University and has previously studied at Northwestern University and Knox College. He reads for TriQuarterly and his work has appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, The Harvard Crimson, Portland Review, Midwest Quarterly, and California Journal of Poetics, among others. In addition to writing and painting, Jim is an international semi-professional American football player. @JimDavisArt