July - Poem 14
Staples / Clayre Benzadon
Potatoes and pickles
are both Jewish and queer
staples (think deformed
latkes, Passover, Kosher dills,
pickle juice in the Talmud.
I take out my recipe book:
“Peter’s Pickled Potato”:
-1 baked potato
-(vegan) mozzarella strips
-diced pickle cubes (as topping)
Three years ago, food
became my enemy, my worst
nightmare.
Nowadays, though, I crave
fries almost every other week,
and hold a spear in between
my teeth, pretending it were
a crunchy, tangy
cigarette.
Don’t Tell My Parents / RJ Ingram
Listen up nerds
Gather all your pogs & etch-a-sketch drawings
Unplug your lite brites
Roll up your parachute pants
And stand with me in the deep end
Of an empty pool
Because my parents are out of town
And I have exactly 48 hours
Before my neighbor checks on me
Let’s have a good-old-fashion local area network party
And steal music the hard way
By waiting for shady websites to load
In between videos of kids older than us
Doing tricks on skateboards
Chain smoking cheap cigarettes
And pranking each other
With a slap to the groin
How is that a prank? You ask?
It’s not but we’ll say it is
Listen up nerds
I’ve been waiting all night to tell you
There is nothing quite like watching ice cream melt
Next to the refrigerator
Because you left the carton out
And the door to the fridge open
Spoon in hand just waiting
And waiting
For someone to remind you
That you were getting everyone ice cream
But you know this about yourself:
The lack of focus that keeps you from buying the good stuff
And you can throw the tub away & try again next week
And you can set a million reminders on a million different apps
But it won’t help or at least won’t help forever
And one of these days your parents aren’t gonna come back
And it’s just going to be you
In the deep end of an empty pool
Looking over your shoulder saying
Listen up nerds
I think we forgot something
I Watch My Children and Recall How I Looped Through Childhood / MeraBaird Kuar
You know you can’t trust your eyes the way
they invent movement in the dark-- dashes
tracing each other in the background
of an unanswered mind, thinking its way
to maturity, scaffolds form valleys
in the neuroplasticity, you wrote this poem
before, in fact, it has been written an infinite
number of times and you remember this
not as a memory with a time or place
not as a tangible record written in lead
or ink but something deeper, a night of echo
that spreads it wings through the soul
ripples of rings visible in the invisible aura
look closer and you’ll see them in the irises
American Idol / Kes Maro
Taylor Swift (2017 & 2023), George W. Bush (2000 & 2004),
The American Soldier (1950 & 2003), Barack Obama (2008 & 2012)
soldiers look at the camera
& hold guns in both
hands. always, green
light in the right eye.
gaze weighed
& serious shadow
radiating. clever blue
light, red absences.
hope is an excellent way to market
war. he looks away.
he wears a gun on his back.
the message is whichever one
will make us let go
of our gag reflex.
whichever one will make
us swallow. the music
The Brothers Grimm / Azmia Ricchuito
The stars remind us
that the past is real.
By the time
their light
reaches us,
they’ve already shed
their mortal coil.
We teach our children
to wish on death.
Jealousy Monsters / Tammy Smith
My jealousy monster sinks
to the bottom of empty,
crushes me like ice
in a tall glass of Sprite.
Yours sticks to the fitted sheets
of a four-poster king-size bed, torn
from twisting and turning
through sweaty, sleepless nights.
We're supposed to share our stuff:
fast-food straws, even dirty forks,
soft shirts smeared with strawberries, wine
ketchup or blood, pillows smelling of sex.
Jealousy monsters thrive
at jobs where bosses flirt,
in “Guess How Many Jelly Beans
Are in the Jar” contests,
at baseball games and poetry readings,
where scores and high marks become stains,
above tight breast pockets
or below belt buckles
hugging the hip bone.
They learn to breathe
deep underwater,
howling inside grief,
spreading guilt like frosting
over triple-layer fudge cake,
licking wounds like raw
cookie batter left in our chipped bowl.
The Art of the Artful Dodger / Daphne Stanford
Is to get crafty with the moon. I mean
Really get crafty with it. Witchy, even?
Because even the lodgers take cover &
Like Bowie, cover their ears & move in
Their mind to Berlin, or something—
This new moon has us all throwing our
Hands, yelling Bullocks—if I only knew
About Jupiter in Gemini or some such
Rubbish, even as we’d all fancy a cup of
Tea, I gather the crowds won’t take to it
As the Mad Hatter would—Fancy another
Cup of tea?!? He always slurred so dreadfully
As if he was a bit tipsy the entire time—but
Of course he was. I mean, what was the
Caterpillar doing atop that giant mushroom
Anyway? As I was saying, the art of the
Artful dodger is just that—the artful dodge.
A turning one’s head to redirect the eyes
Elsewhere, to allow one’s train of thought to
Wander, then charge straight toward it like
A locomotive—
