Frank’s American Childhood / David Hadbawnik
The astonishing depth of despair that emanates from Frank’s American Childhood. Making a sound like Popeye the Sailor – “Ack-ack-ack-ack-ack” – mouth open, showing toothless gums, flapping a tiny red tongue. Utterly inconsolable. Completely out of reach. The father carrying Frank’s American Childhood around, singing, shushing – a vigorous “Shhh!” elicits a startled glance – and then, for seemingly no reason, Frank’s American Childhood goes eerily quiet
*
The parents of Frank’s American Childhood become connoisseurs of shit. Listening closely for the explosive squirting sound, which is sometimes pushed out with a taut look of concentration. Then, they check the diaper: What color is it? Dark green, at first. They are delighted when it changes to yellow – sticky, gooey, smeared up the back of Frank’s American Childhood. The astonishing shit that gushes out, defiling the diaper but somehow leaving the flesh perfectly pink and clean
*
Picking squished blueberries out of a bowl, throwing them into the trash, dropping the good ones back into the carton. One hadn’t thought of individual blueberries before. In a way, this job would be better done by a person lacking sight, each berry needing to be fondled individually, rolled around between thumb and finger, to sense whether the skin of the berry is broken, the juice torn out. How obscene they are, raw and needy and somehow not unlike Frank’s American Childhood, little eyeballs rolling around in the hand, the crusty, puckered part where they’d been plucked at the stem
untitled / Alexander Shalom Joseph
he tells me
I’ve got some serious guts
trying to follow my dreams
that he had dreams once
but he put them down
like an old dog
and went to work instead
and yes it is about guts I guess
to do what one is called to do
but isn’t it harder
to wake up every morning
and kill the calling
drown it in too much coffee
and traffic and desk work
and then beer come night
I’ve done it too
I’ve worked long hours
at something I hated
ignored that fluttering truth
there just below my heart
that sings forever
telling of purpose and place
somehow we have been told
that this is not worth listening to
that this is just some splinter
of a fantasy lodged there
instead of our very spirit
sometimes I doubt it still
but I remember the day
I quit my day job
and drove home slow
in the middle of the morning
everything suddenly felt
bright and alive
and my bills felt enormous
but so too did my potential
I sat down and wrote a poem
and it was perfect
and terrible and terrifying
and everything
my friend who says he is unhappy
with his life and choices
but who refuses to change
tells me that it takes guts
to choose to follow my dreams
and it does but isn’t it harder
to kill them day after day
is doesn’t take much
to wake up
and step outside
and listen to the birds
it is easy actually
it is what we were meant to do
Chicken, Dickinson / Sally Kuzuma
I wipe my chin, greased as usual
by what I take in– last night's
fine chicken dinner dressed in plum, apricot, olive.
Reading, eating– it all becomes us
in one way or another, colors
what we put out in our name.
I think of Dickinson’s kitchen and wonder
if there was ever an unforgettable meal
that muscled its way into a poem
the way the one I just had is doing now.
But I see no chicken in her poems, hardly any meals at all
save for an eagle’s golden breakfast, aka victory,
a feast she notes is unreachable for smaller birds.
Eat is close to crumbs, close to starve.
What she eats is next to nothing—
God gave a loaf to every bird,
But just a crumb to me;
I dare not eat it, though I starve…
having is just enough.
Miss Grim / Rachel Lee
They drop down on me when I'm coming
Trying to catch my breath after doing all this runnin
Wishin one day I'll control the rain and be full on an empty stomach
Plummet!
Smash!
Damn we're here at last
Crowns on, Nose up
Yeah, we're here at last
Newsflash!
Miss Grim is so radical
Feast on artificial hearts to prove we're compatible
Keep your life in the dark
It's so intangible
Now you know need an overdue sabbatical
Same face, new name, same soul, end game
Call of the Wild / Lincoln McElwee
I wanted it to be a better home and garden, an apartment balcony worthy of a glossy two-page spread. I wanted it to be a Pinterest like, a match made in mood board heaven. I wanted it to be a refuge against the seasons, summer’s shaded balm, winter’s cozy armament. But the wrought iron patio furniture is rusting now, its tetanus smile easy in the edgy Autumn light. The hummingbird feeder lies in a tangled mess, faded orange spindles like macrame spiderwebs. And what does the birch leave after its winded shaking? Nutlets and catkins dressing the concrete, serrated yellow leaves pooling like a Guinness feat. The carpet, after rains and snow, moldy and moss-ridden, beholden to the wild wonders of each season. I often hear in the silent hours of night the shrill, small chirps of living things. They seek refuge in the broken pots emptied of their tulip bulbs, the perennials parched beyond the pale, the plastic turquoise containers lined with dead aphids and spiderwebs. Abandonment so total that it’s an ownership, the wild reclaiming its own. And then I spot the neighbors’ balconies. So clean, so pristine. For a moment, I’m eaten alive by embarrassment. I think, today will be the day, today I will reclaim what is mine. But something about the cleanliness also gnaws at me. And so the spiderwebs lace the broom and the dustpan still, their fearless geometry calling to some fractal unraveling within me. Like the moss, my mind’s its own. And so I let the wild things be.
Fists / Michelle Stoll
What more can I say
about fists
that a bruise has not
already said?
A well placed knuckle
goes deeper, purples longer
What can I say
about fists
that Want has not
already told me?
All five fingers clinched
withhold what's needed most
Make a fist
Now relax
Make a fist
Now relax
There's a good vein
Raised fist
Fist fight
Pounding on the pulpit fist
Iron fist
Fist bump
It's all good
lemon stand at sirmione / Sandra Tan
lemons so large they could be
footballs for children.
the salt air and sight of the lake
make them yellow. lake garda,
lady with a blue headscarf,
red-and-white striped sailboats
on her ears. crossing the lake
an act of faith. men onboard
raising hands to eyes in the
white glitter, scattered sand
baked to silica. cool of the chapel.
on a hill, shaded by olive trees.
cool, arched doorway on which
I place my hand, saying water.
