Conflation
1.
Yesterday at the riverfront, the water
rose so high a man washed
his socks from the rubble placed along the bank
to guard the walking path. His socks
were filthy from slogging through the Quarter
during the morning’s flood. As hot
as it was, those socks must have felt
divine on his feet, like a river of cool breeze
carrying him to his next shady spot. He did not
rush the washing. He had no need
to leave any of the river behind.
The Doll and Me
I hate the doll, its plumpy head,
its brunette swirls, its itsy cheeks,
its pout, its lashes, the uptight clothes,
marrowless arms, nerveless teeth,
its squeaking, the mess
it makes on the floor.
I want to detach the twee wee feet
and hammer it to the fence, drown it,
skewer it to the door, to say ‘this is what
has become of us’. Even naked
it makes me angry and afraid.
Mirages
A house is not a terrapin
or a sailboat
or a maelstrom
The sunstorm that swindles
at midweek
sycamore green embossed on the heart
like sequins or worlds
No (New) Man’s Land
His is
a life in fluid drawn,
pushed through
scar tissue, muscle yielding.
Pull. Plunge.
Inject. Extract.
New man by
needle-born in flush
of mid-life puberty,
bending forty
years of life.
Burying facts that
fail to fit.
Its All Greek to me
For B. D. M.
“The embrace of men”
I say
and you pirouette
behind the cash register
a new found bond at work
secrets
an old woman’s face with a schoolgirl’s smile,
your words on the page
mean nothing;
Continue reading “Secrets – A Poem by Lisa Reily”
The Poem, Afraid
Some dog’s ghost
glares from the
attic window.
I know the door
to a nuclear plant
with his teeth
captioned above it:
Some mammal was
here and such.
When our youngest
walked in on us
last night,
I was coming.
She was scared
because she heard
someone crying.
I kiss the bruise
a bad dream leaves
in her head
& keep an eye
on the lonely ghost.
Contrapuntal: In Which We Swallow Insects While Contemplating Environmental Apocalypse
Continue reading “Two Poems by Beth Gordon”
Piranhas
He was one of those people
those who talk
purely because they can
they are everywhere
especially, but not exclusively
at petrol stations
grocery shops
banks and beaches
and school gates
they love school gates
Their child is doing voices
‘All of us have a primitive prompter or commentator within, who from earliest years has been advising us, telling us what the real world is’ – Saul Bellow.
It is hot. Outside on the landing his parents
are in readiness, hushed for the show.
Hear him now, stirring.
The whiteness of his mind, at peace, a planet,
is studio enough
where, ice-still in echoes like a deepfreeze mariner,
he inhales to begin.
To preacher-perfect O’s mimicking the next doors.
And now the imperatives to weepy Olive Oyl,
hot talk, transmissions, dogfights and now,
waspish, with accent, lisping Daffy Duck,
scolding her charges in squeaky ’78.
Escapes
I remember
the rocks hot under
my skin, black sun-glistened
flecks in sugar-almond stone,
rush of foam-tinged
sparkling water, the pull back
of waves fizzing sand.
Traces
As slow as the breathing
of the ancient giant
long said to sleep beneath
our town’s tallest hill,
snow piled up that week
against the edge
of pine needled forest floor,
then fell back like a cold ocean tide.
Glorify
I learned to call on details that come unnoticed
brush strokes that hide in-between.
No Bed of Roses
To distract us from horrible numbers
I wear this hat. It’s wide as a plate, full of roses and birds,
a platter in red and white, and thin as a peel of sunburned skin.
You can see right through it. The birds fly around it
and nest and do all the bird things. You can watch
my hat instead of the news of the horrible numbers
who populate all of our nightmares
disturbing our rest, I say rest because who
still sleeps? after all that has happened.
The birds, though, they sleep. They sleep
among the roses encircling my large plate of a hat,
the hat thin as reason, thin as a thought of compromise,
and wide as all one person can do to avoid
knowing certain things. Wide as a sea of forgetting
the horrible numbers, wide as loss, as much loss
as one small person can carry upon a hat,
even a hat as wide as mine. Ah, the roses.
They have such a lovely scent, it keeps me
awake at night. Let them, I say. Let them.
BURNING HOUSE PRESS 