Poem by Noah Blaustein

Prince Lightning, Prince Thunder

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That shelf dedicated to the titles 
of your life, the work and joy of it,
flashes clear. Airplanes must have 
seeded the clouds through the night 
to grow rain. I’ve almost slept until dawn 
without shame. The beautiful 
younger poet whose smile and lines 
you can’t shake – not your first 
thought. I’m waiting for thunder. 
I’m waiting for lightning to see 
if the light passes through me 
where my heart and lungs should be 
or if I will blink at my hand tossing 
blueberries & raspberries into a bath
of oatmeal & soy milk. I fell asleep 
reading an obituary & weather science 
at the same time, death & shifts 
in atmospheric pressure. The pop icon’s 
death was due to a hole in his heart. His 
death was due to an overdose. His death 
is unknown & unknowable and the silver 
iodide the good people from Public Works 
fired from secret cannons to make 
the drought evaporate may be saving us 
from dehydration or they may be putting 
microscopic holes through you and me. If 
there’s thunder, I’m going to last a little 
longer before I lose my cool following 
my son from room to room to make sure 
all the curious books of this house 
& all the curious things of this world 
don’t keep him from finding his neon 
yellow sweatshirt among the piles 
of my bachelor-black boxers. “I’m on 
the downslope of my forties” I can hear 
a drug dealer I used to hang out with 
say. “Don’t wait for thunder” I can hear 
my old therapist say. “Be like water. 
Water has no scars.” What’s it like 
to be the best guitarist in the world?” 
a journalist asked Clapton. “I don’t know” 
he said, “go ask Prince.” That Prince 
of the obituary that made my eyes go heavy
last night & that Prince whose Purple Rain 
funked up my dreams. For fifteen years 
I partied overtime, waited for thunder, 
waited for the party of a century 
that’s now fifteen years past. Everyday 
the free radicals of my youth pass 
from us & the youth take up their old ideas
as if they were their own & revolutionary. 
There are many tiny holes in my heart
from all the people I am secretly in love with 
which means I still want to be satisfied 
& never satisfied. In the next two minutes 
a friend will text me an invite to another
Prince’s funeral, Prince Buster, the original
Prince of “Madness” & my ex wife 
will text to let me know she bought a Tesla 
& not to freak out at pick up & your new 
something or other will ask if you want 
to get a cabin this weekend to watch clouds 
& read Dante in bed. If there was thunder. 
If there were lightening. I did not notice. “Ok, 
whatever you want” I text my ex back.I was 
fun to be married to but I wasn’t that great
at being responsible. When I fill out 
the tardy slip the principal gives me
a private smile.I once surfed Mavericks 
with Ingrid, the women she ditched 
her husband for. I write the facts: 
“We’re late because the giant squid 
has three brains & its DNA is not believed 
to be from this world.”

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Noah Blaustein has published poems, most recently, in The Cincinnati Review, The Chattahoochee Review, Zyzzyva, The Harvard Review, and Barrow Street. Interviews of him can be found online at The Georgia Review, the Los Angeles Times, and National Public Radio. His book, Flirt, (University of New Mexico Press, 2013) was the first first book ever selected for a tour on the Georgia Poetry Circuit. His anthology, Motion: American Sports Poems was an editors’ pick of the year by the editor’s of National Public Radio and the Boston Globe. The poem published here is from After Party, coming out in 2018 from the University of New Mexico Press.

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