Now Only
David Dephy
We know time always begins now.
We try to give everything a sense
of purpose, always see the sea around.
We know we will not hear again the bad
news from the other side of the desert,
shacked by the pulsation of epoch—
the narration of catastrophic orgies.
We know something about the biggest
secret of life: what has brought us here
will lead us away, our breath is our ship,
our time is our ship, our heartbeat is
our ship in the ocean of expectations,
in tined harbor water. We know the spell
never works, and it’s already ended,
let us bring back our life, just one kiss,
one breath that can only move forward,
love moves faster than the speed of light,
never disappears, as this morning leaves
drift on the field as usual, sliding for a bit,
they look at every other leaf on the ground,
all around us, they see us, they never slide
alone, turning the wind into a song,
with its distant echoes, they also know,
perfectly, that breath leads us away.
David Dephy is an award-winning American poet, novelist, essayist, and multimedia artist with a Master of Fine Arts degree accredited by Globe Language USA. He founded the Poetry Orchestra and American Poetry Intersection and serves as the Poet-in-Residence for Brownstone Poets from 2024 to 2025. NASA, Lunar Codex, and Brick Street Poetry sent David’s “A Sense of Purpose” poem to the Moon in 2025. Recognized as a “Literature Luminary” by Bowery Poetry, a “Stellar Poet” by Voices of Poetry, and an “Incomparable Poet” by Statorec, he has also been called “Brilliant Grace” by Headline Poetry & Press and praised for his “Extremely Unique Poetic Voice” by Cultural Daily. In 2017, Dephy was exiled from his native country of Georgia and granted immediate and indefinite political asylum in the U.S. His wife and 9-year-old son reunited with him in the U.S. in 2023 after seven years of exile. He lives and works in New York City.