from LIGHT AROUND A PILOT 
		in memory of my grandfather Milos Marinovic



II. 


	Grampa Mercy sleeps at the bottom of  
the convergence of the Danube and Sava rivers 
one day to Awake

No he was cremated 
So 
Awake 







III. "WE COME TO HEAVEN AS OUR BEST SELVES"  

			my grandfather woke me up at four in the morning 
			with a panic attack to tell me 
			in a white star FLASH 
			he'd gone–("Called back")–
			    I yelled "Deko!" 
			    took an Atavan 
			    fell asleep–
			later that morning 
			I was woken up by a rumbling on my heart 
			his WWII allied fighter plane 
			had landed on my runway heart– 
			I knelt and prayed before the small 
			Golden Buddha by the lamp 
			and heard Grampa 
standing on the wing of his plane 
			yell out "ZIVEO MI FILIPE!" 
			"LONG LIVE FILIP!" 
	
I didn't know if he was alive or dead and 
	shivering I was a shaman who might know 
how to help him but I went to see a doctor  
thorough calming kind and going to Mexico 	
next week may the Gods bless him and his family 
he gave me the meds making my mind 
a well made bed again or a cot at least for now  
	a night ago I was growing black feathers from my arms 
	before the mirror a shadowy magician 
	with tall slouching black top-hat 
	on my head I held a dead phone to my ear
	chastizing myself for not being present 
at his death-bed to experience the process
	would it have made it easier would I have gone even madder 
if that's possible O yes 
a blessed dialtone and pill-induced sleep






IV. TO ELIZABETH AND JACQUELINE 


It's as if I wanted to, with perfect clarity, apprehend my grandfather's death to keep it from 
happening. And I went to the monastery to do it in ecstasy. I thought enlightenment could happen 
and then stay and no suffering though living could be. Wrong. Gong! The life of a monk is not for 
me, my mind does not have that stability! "My mind goes like this." "How does my mind go." "It 
goes...like that." "I like that. You should be thankful for your mind. It has a lot of pizazz. Daphne 
said so at the ramp to her show. Everybody who comes into contact with it says that."

"I feel like this city is fucking me in all my holes," I said to Jacqueline. She said "That's what 
everybody's saying," laughing, leaning against gallery glass "but I miss it in Pittsburgh I love it in 
Pittsburgh yesterday I got a brown belt in karate." I said "The art of self-defense!" and she didn't 
hear me and I started talking about poetry teachers and nodding she replied: "Everybody says 
'intention' but that's just believing somebody else’s religion. All you have is the information 
given by your senses." 






V. INSTRUMENTALITIES


Fil, 
	artifact is ash 
	ash is artifact 

		fill your resonation chamber 
		with mufflers. It's ash. 

Ash is artifact 
	artifact is 

			a find. 
Make one. No. Gas. Oxygen. Breathe  
smile write paint sing play 
          ILLUMINATE. 






VI. DESPITE MY FEVERISHNESS HE'S DEAD  


a cork plugging up 
a hole in Earth's atmosphere 
popped out, rendering it 
a zero gravity planet

and I'm sucked upward
and it's       him in my lungs 
gives me breath to sing 
remembering
every part of 
my body filled 
with him 
here no longer

I'm him
so I better 
climb in the cockpit 
and take off 
with lungs that can take any altitude 
even the rapidly changing one 
when he was shot down by Nazis 
and survived the black oiljet 
gushing against his lenses–

 




VII.


	Grampa Mercy sleeps at the bottom of 
the convergence of the Danube and Sava rivers 
one day to Awake 

No he was cremated 
So 
Awake 






___________________________________________________________


Filip Marinovich is the author of ZERO READERSHIP (Ugly Duckling Presse 2008) and of the 
forthcoming AND IF YOU DON'T GO CRAZY I'LL MEET YOU HERE TOMORROW (Ugly Duckling Presse 2011). 
He lives in New York City.