April - Poem 2
The Day ctd / Maureen Alsop
Below the equator above the 26th parallel and the Brisbane Line[1], I live in a space of my own choosing.
I’m working through a “third state”[2] of consciousness, organically seeking subtext, solitude. Working between image and experimentation. I expose myself. In this, I expose betrayal.
An anatomy with
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[1] The Brisbane Line was a division designed in WW2 wherein the whole of the northern region of Australia would be abandoned in the face of catastrophic attack. Comforting for one living in Far North Queensland right?! I don’t want so plainly to announce my who and where, but suffice it, I am both American and Australian. Though in both countries, I’m confident, I would be most obviously considered as an American. I will try not to judge this. To introduce myself to one “why” I am here in this situation of 30/30, I’d like to thank Tupelo for their support. Tupelo kindly published some visual poems some years ago:
https://www.tupeloquarterly.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Alsop-Witness.compressed-copy.pdf
I like to support those who support me. I’ll leave it at that for now.
[2] The idea of a “third state,” here described through a found reference to a war ship; “war ship” and “worship” are two continuums of American heritage. To me, the “third state” is better defined by the theta, or dream state, also possibly that momentary decomposition shortly after death. At the moment, as at every moment, there are many destructions afoot. I am human, thus wounded, let’s go with that, hey?
My Father Shaves / Bob Bradshaw
An early memory of my father?
A towel around his waist,
he holds a shaving brush,
as he stands in front
of the bathroom mirror.
The walls crawl
with droplets of water.
And Dad’s cheeks?
They are slopes
lathered in clouds
of foam.
With his brush he dabs
a dollop of cloud-stuff
on my left cheek,
then stands back, like an artist admiring
his morning’s work.
His index finger
draws a cloud-trail of foam
down my right cheek.
Shall I shave you, son?
I nod, yes! And carefully
(blade closed) he scrapes
the cloud-surf from my face
with his blade.
Go show your mom.
She’ll be proud to see
how much you’ve grown up!
and I race off with
the good news.
One Sock / Stan Galloway
between washer
and dryer
lies unfound
for weeks
missed but
looked for
in wrong places
mate set aside
unable to cry out
also lost
because alone.
The Widening Field / Ava Hu
Make it stand out
*
Who am I
a witness
to green entering
everything
dervish of myth
and pollen
we fingerprnt canyons
dust climbing light
we fngerprint the bruise
of rain on white jasmine
belly of a cloud
expanding with breath
which line unsettles
the field?
Who will be the water
who lifts the boat?
*
untitled / Sergiy Pustogarov
i have started planning my morning around my time on the toilet.
i know it will take me anywhere from five to thirty minutes
every morning when i get up to do my business,
and so i wake up thirty minutes earlier than i want to;
just because i know that my body doesn’t always love me, and somewhere
inside my bosom, the gears are not completely turning in synchrony.
i know this isn’t normal, and every two years i know it will get much worse--
throwing me into a housebound fit of nausea and constant pain, but it’s life.
and i’m too scared to go to the doctor to figure out what could be wrong
with me, and my anxiety is too high to get the tests they want of my insides,
just to be able to say what’s wrong, and what my final verdict will be. what medication
they say that i should shove down my throat to let me get up thirty minutes later in the day.
so i just tell myself that it must be ibs, because it’s a magical little thing that
cannot be easily identified; and it kind of fits all the symptoms that i’m having;
and it’s not as bad as colon cancer. well, wait it could be that, i guess.
and i’m sorry, but i have so many issues running through my mind.
you see the thing i didn’t tell you at the beginning is that i am a medical student--
i know more things that could go wrong with your body than the average person.
and somehow that sometimes sends me into a tailspin, wondering what i’m struggling
with today when i wake up thirty minutes earlier, just to sit on a cold porcelain throne.
and i guess it could be colon cancer, because i do vape-- and there have been a hundred
different studies that show the tobacco i’m slowly inhaling into my lungs
is somehow connected to the rest of my cells; causing them to turn all beserk,
and never really know what they are doing inside my body
it could also be some other disease like crohns, making every meal i eat a dance
with the devil. never knowing how it will affect the rest of my day, and how long
i will be sent back to the seat of durge, to pay my respects for simply eating.
but i’m still too scared to get that colonoscopy that in the end could show nothing.
so today i end the day by telling myself it’s ibs all along,
and plan to get up thirty minutes earlier tomorrow.
--this is ibs—
blacking out at my first phillies game/nat raum
scarlet and powder blue are now phanatic-shaped
blurs in the back of my retinae. surfside tastes
like stevia so i stomach the whole can in sacrifice.
i know i’m a good friend—that’s not the point.
i giggle from behind the phils’ dugout and pray
they dig themselves out from five runs down
despite my loyalty to baltimore’s baseball birds.
we take the train back up broad, take fishtown
iced teas to the face and shots of beef broth
to boot. sometimes i still don’t believe myself
when i run it all back, and i’m not just talking
about this afternoon, chilly but sunspeckled,
shitfaced in a way that doesn’t burn the house
down. i watch thereal housewives of new york
and everyone says ramona’s an angry drunk.
i watch southern charm and they say craig’s problem
is not the booze, but the fury which lies closer
to the surface than most of us are comfortable
with. i also mean myself, my own disdains
and demons once gasping like goldfish, begging
for their fair share of oxygen. the last oracle card
i bought said dance with your shadows; they are a part
of you. i sip dirty martinis with mine now, certain
dark and light are close enough to hold each
others’ hair back, if it came to it. i smoke mystery
blunts outside the bar. i come to bent over a toilet,
more mess than pillar, but still alive. sometimes
i have to remind myself that i am still alive.
Bison Gallivanting in South Dakota / Daniel Avery Weiss
He is as breath
on fire
a sort of fan
a shovel into some
thing seeking
a soul
oh,
what dirt
reconcile / MK Zariel
i’ll leave it to you to see me
in the cold yet glowing light of a Wisconsin winter,
in the reflections we ignore, in the way
neither of us feel a single thing without
questioning it first. come and make small talk
at the edge of a cliff with me—update me
on your transition goals while we watch the world burn—
make me wonder if we have original characters
or just shadow selves. you feel like safety
and home to me, a person for whom safety
and home are mixed bags at best. i can’t decide
how to feel about that. i’ll extend a casual
invitation, a shy smile, nothing more than an
ill fated event and a gossip session after,
soft light, quirky memes, the infinity of time.
you don’t like to talk about the future. you don’t
talk about things you don’t respect. i’ll move on
or pretend to—watch your smile like a curated
cottagecore aesthetic, watch your selfhood like
a beautiful fortress, watch you build walls
made of desires as-yet-noticed. you once told me
i was your only real friend, and i was equal parts
horrified and impressed.
