Justin Rigamonti
[Additional Commandments]
Additional Commandments: 1. Try to understand what’s happening to you. 2. Call what’s
happening to you consciousness— unless you don’t want to, don’t do it then, there’s
nothing more ridiculous than a commandment. Do I contradict myself? 3. Contradict
yourself. 4. Hold your mind up to the light and see if there’s any contradiction in it. 5.
When you find the contradiction, kiss it on the lips. Say everything is failure, everything is
wound. Say I am my beloved and he is mine. Say I am my beloved and he is mine.
[Funny how consciousness creates a cosmic axis]
Funny how consciousness creates a cosmic axis in the POV of every conscious being.
Funny being one, a consciousness, the way this cosmic center turns and turns over
against my attention to these lines. And funny to put my palm against the edges of it, the
coolness of its density, the way it floats in the middle of what I am. I ask the lord for
answers and the man I love opens his mouth. I try it again but it happens again, the lord
about to speak and my mouth opening. The lord is in my throat and whatever I say had
its wellspring inside all of us, inside the placelessness beneath us, and each of us a mouth,
a talking wound on the surface of time.
[A falling man loved you]
A falling man loved you. A man who was falling from the sky loved you. He loved you as
he fell. And the love he loved you with fell beside the man falling from the sky. Because
no matter the weight, two objects that fall together will fall together. But you were not
falling, were you? We passed each other in the sky.
Justin Rigamonti teaches writing at a college in Portland, Oregon and serves as the Managing Editor of Fonograf Editions. His poems have been recently published or are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, New Ohio Review, and The Bangalore Review.
Return to January 2021 Edition
Additional Commandments: 1. Try to understand what’s happening to you. 2. Call what’s
happening to you consciousness— unless you don’t want to, don’t do it then, there’s
nothing more ridiculous than a commandment. Do I contradict myself? 3. Contradict
yourself. 4. Hold your mind up to the light and see if there’s any contradiction in it. 5.
When you find the contradiction, kiss it on the lips. Say everything is failure, everything is
wound. Say I am my beloved and he is mine. Say I am my beloved and he is mine.
[Funny how consciousness creates a cosmic axis]
Funny how consciousness creates a cosmic axis in the POV of every conscious being.
Funny being one, a consciousness, the way this cosmic center turns and turns over
against my attention to these lines. And funny to put my palm against the edges of it, the
coolness of its density, the way it floats in the middle of what I am. I ask the lord for
answers and the man I love opens his mouth. I try it again but it happens again, the lord
about to speak and my mouth opening. The lord is in my throat and whatever I say had
its wellspring inside all of us, inside the placelessness beneath us, and each of us a mouth,
a talking wound on the surface of time.
[A falling man loved you]
A falling man loved you. A man who was falling from the sky loved you. He loved you as
he fell. And the love he loved you with fell beside the man falling from the sky. Because
no matter the weight, two objects that fall together will fall together. But you were not
falling, were you? We passed each other in the sky.
Justin Rigamonti teaches writing at a college in Portland, Oregon and serves as the Managing Editor of Fonograf Editions. His poems have been recently published or are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, New Ohio Review, and The Bangalore Review.
Return to January 2021 Edition