September - Poem 27
That’s No Moon: On Not Watering the Succulents / Laura Bandy
I don’t want them to die but I do
want to see how long they can survive.
Cactus has the best shot, obviously.
The one with fat shiny leaves also seems
as though she’ll pull through. Poor spider plant
looks dry, desiccate. Not even a
real succulent though, what’s she doing on
my dedicated shelf? Wooden, thin, no
dusting cloth for months. Suspended like
Luke’s hovercraft in A New Hope and
framed by a blue milk sky in my window
high up the stairs. I don’t know if Michael
liked Star Wars or any other sci-
fi films—he never talked about it.
What seemed to interest him were black windows
and what snuck in them or was reflected
there. Look from the lighted kitchen, see
a face: your own or someone else’s,
something else’s, maybe. Because I could
not imagine a time when he’d be gone
I did not ask for things: keepsakes or
final words. It’s simple, really. Stay
planted in the earth and long for water,
moisture farmers to save you. Or rocket up
to heavens’ place, incandesce with the
Northern Lights, become one of many
glittering bodies, including the moon
half shadowed—first a grin, then her true face.
Motherhood in America / Alicia Boemi
I am brave enough to walk among you,
without spitting in your face.
I am courageous enough to raise my children alongside you,
without tearing you limb from limb
I am audacious enough to reach out my hand to you, a handshake
without cutting off your fingers
I am bold enough to enable strong girls to become stronger women,
without you ruining their innocence
I am daring enough to live in this chaos,
without cowering and crumbling.
Men. They are not safe.
I am not foolhardy;
I am a mother.
The Nice Hotel has the No Vacancy Sign On / Jesse DeLong
The radio is stuck on half-heard. The windows are down.
You see its name, white on green, eighteen miles to town.
There are only two available hotels in Okmulgee, Oklahoma.
Leaves in the pool of the Motel 6 have camouflaged it to brown.
The cashier asks you if you prefer cash. The lobby has an alley aroma.
The radio is stuck on half-heard. The windows are down.
The AC works in the room, but the TV has no sound.
The next room has the game on, but the humidity would put you in a coma.
There are only two available hotels in Okmulgee, Oklahoma.
The next is a Super 9. You’ve never seen those around.
The manager is an Indian in a polo shirt and has glaucoma.
The radio is stuck on half-heard. The windows are down.
There is a roach, the shape of a bullet, on the ceiling’s crown.
He must have crawled through where the door’s bottom forms a stoma.
There are only two available hotels in Okmulgee, Oklahoma.
Step outside into the humidity and begin to drown
in anxiety, your brain a blaring of chroma.
The radio is stuck on half-heard. The windows are down.
There are only two available hotels in Okmulgee, Oklahoma.
Maybe the garden / Shelly Krehbiel
will give you the poem today, she says.
She knows me. I am grateful to be known,
grateful for the garden, for legs and back
that let me tend it. Though often I forget.
I sit inside the house, don’t want to change
my clothes, don’t think I can afford the time.
I forget there are poems out there, ripe, ready.
Purple figs. Red apples. Green everything
turning so quickly into yellow. I forget
how it tastes – fruit warm in the sun.
I forget how my fingers feel against
the bark of trees.
In the first garden, did she, for a moment,
taste pure sweetness? Did the juice run
slippery down her fingers, stain the corners
of her lips? Did she wake to something then
that had been inside her all along, her
gratitude tangled with her fear, the strength
in her arms with the fragility of her breath?
Did she ever miss that time when all of it
was one and her self was just her self,
no good, no evil, no separation? The garden
will give you the poem, she says. She knows
me. I am grateful to be known.
The DC Cinematic Universe, / rob mclennan
Refresh, refresh. Just hit refresh. Keep hitting. Tantric. Thus. To wag the dog. You’ll get there.
Parenthesis / Piper Rasmussen
The parenthetical in word and deed is an ethical way of life.
Florence Hazrat, On the Mark: From Periods to Interrobangs, How Punctuation Remade the World
as with programming languages (i.e. Lisp) (designed for symbolic AI, back in the day)
(or maybe I'm wrong, I'm not an expert) just one way of saying things
that lives & lets live in divergence (commutative property) (change the order not the operation)
self-contained units, little cell-wall-bubbles (peptidoglycans) (unless of course you mean
monastic cells (or animated ones) solid (unless split (so I hear) with a great bang))
as an explainer, it is ethical to persuade on behalf of doubt
& sidebars, to note alternate ways (that is to say
to show not everything can be explained away
the wildfire in horse heaven hills / Connor Simons
ravines are filled with spiked bent
grass & mounds of wild horse
teeth bloom beside the sunflower
mimicry of sere balsamroot
these ashdrunk hills compress
the wind & besides the freeway
wood settler crosses a name
signals desertion disaster or taut
ribs piercing paperthin flesh heaven
& desiccated roots houses
abandoned for the promise
of dense alfalfas & domesticated water
Her Name Was Eve / Melinda Wilson
Even before the moment of her
awakening, she was aware of her
cunt. The undeniably feminine
curl of its hairline. Nothing could
make her or let her forget
this crude animal fact of her design.
She was woman.
She spent her days of sin and freedom
from form in the butterfly gardens,
delighting in the soft touch of chitin
wings, brush feet moving like tiny
brooms along the ribbed worms of her
arms. She licked the grooves of her skin
to test her own sweetness. She wanted
badly for it to please them. She contrasted
her own form with their fragility
and concluded she was a mountaineer,
traversing alpine foot trails to sleep
alone and not alone in the rookery.
And many times, the carrion birds
visited to peel long ropes of flesh
from her cragged body.
She was woman.
