Jason Morphew: California Poets Part 11, Five Poems

Jason Morphew

October 20th, 2026

California Poets: Part XI

Jason Morphew

Five Poems

The first sad funk song

will be on the one but

no one will know the one

being twain

bifurcated even

from ourselves

that will be its sadness

seeking to place

othered parts

in sequencefailing to arouse

dreaming neighbors

naked yet not dancing

in the sexless orgy

of our lives.

I hope you like my heart ring

I’m wearing it for you

it constrains meso I love you longer

married a thousand years

I was ready at first touch

and now before a million more

I force the far edges

of my heart into this ring

take your hips in hand

and fly you into unknown fidelities

past Persian stems and fingered spas

beyond loans and God and loss

into the wing shadow

where only other shadows cross.

It was determined

at an early ageand though my

mistakes are legion

my greatest one 

was taking it

head on when

its nature is indirect

more subtle though

really it’s quite

obvious and as

I’ve aged

I’ve become 

increasingly surprised

it’s never mentioned 

around me—

less a failure

of love than a

respect for my

journey my

pain or a shared

terror of seeing

things clearly and

saying what they are.

My father once

in a rare moment

of candor brought

on by shame panic

and drugs facing

its final stages 

in himself once 

called it a curse 

I don’t think he meant

to save me

it was more

a recognition

between beasts

lacking reason 

to hope for something 

higher a letter from the lab 

saying everything is fine

there was an error in an earlier diagnosis

and the nature of existence 

is being reconsidered

in light of this

new information.

No.

It was determined

at an early age

perhaps at my

conception and it’s

remarkable I’ve

lived long enough

to say I’m grateful

for my life.

Alamosa

Through the hotel window

across the alley airwebs on the office glass

shift like fingers typing

a keyboard on the desk.

Who could write a memoir

like that mind and fingers

one idea fall day long?

Who could leave his little life

and family and focus so completely

on just another book?

I drift off, look again.

Even the spiders have abandoned

the window’s imagination.

No one’s there.

I am a garden wall

rivulets of kindness

leaking through

I’ve asked God

to remove

what keeps me

holding back

today He said

It is your life

that must come down.

Author Bio:

In California, Jason Morphew has lived in Berkeley, Venice Beach, Hollywood, Eagle Rock, San Francisco, Los Feliz, Winters, Toluca Hills, and Laurel Canyon. His two full-length poetry collections are dead boy (2018) and Eject City (2025). He teaches English at Stanford Online High School.