This morning was brightened considerably in a heartachingly sad way when the postal carrier pulled out a priority box from New Orleans containing 30 copies of the new and tragically final beautiful testament of poet and astral traveler Chris Toll.
The cover is seltzer for the eyes, one of Toll’s most colorful, and contains a bright jack-in-the-box, which was fitting since the books seemed to literally jump out of their container, eager to be devoured by the world.
Instantly diving into it, I was struck again by how in touch Chris was with the painful aspects of life on Earth, yet so cosmically hopeful and tender. Here is the first poem:
Download Universal Anguish
for Joel Dailey
The sun sings
while it makes its rounds.
Why isn’t lunch in melancholy?
God is an atheist.
The moon and stars render tender judgments.
A woman stands across the street
from a liquor store.
Her red sweater is stained,
and there are holes in the knees of her black jeans.
She aims her XM25
at the locked door of the liquor store.
If a constellation were different,
lonely would be lovely.
Jennifer the Christ plugs in her purple guitar and says,
“Where two or more electrons gather in my name,
there I am too.”
The baby dinosaurs scrabble from their nest
as a flying saucer lands.
The circular hatch oscillates open.
A rabbi steps out.
His right hand holds a cutlass
and his left hand holds a raygun.
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“Dear Universe, thank you for the kindness of the way and the beauty of the pilgrims.” (Chris, from the copyright page.)
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