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THE SMOKING POET |
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Amy
Newday Supreme
Court Confirmation Hearings, July 2009 They’re
stoning a woman on my car radio again, but this
time there’s no hole, no hood, no blossoming blood and
it’s not Somalia and I don’t have a peanut
butter sandwich but still I keep flipping them off,
then turning my radio back on, making myself listen—listen,
last night I woke to the sound of a mouse falling
down my basement stairs, trap clamped around its
still-breathing head, so I know what blood
and hair stuck to the side of a rock look like in the dark,
first wet then flaky, how the blood stains unless rinsed
with cold, a man taught me this, I was 24, my underwear
rusty, there were so many things then I had no
evidence for, but I’d held chickadees plucked
from flight, terrified, chirping, their hearts ricocheted
against the pulse in my thumb, their legs snapped like straws,
I splinted them with toothpicks, their wings measured,
recorded, the ossification of their skulls, the leg-band
clamped, the mortality acceptable, the red fox
leg-trapped, relocated, limping only slightly but oh its eyes and
my boots stapled the swamp and I raped geese with sticks
for science; my hands stenographers, assassins;
I watched the men watch me hold them,
the dead ones, and afterwards I waded past cattails
to the stream I soaked in, I offered my legs
to the leeches, I prayed for absolution, the birds
smelled like my grandmother’s closet, dusty and
sweet. What else should I say about those nights in
the post office, the dark round-faced woman, her bright
shawl and what she had to say to me or the owls
always outside my window, wanting their dinners?
There are places in this world no woman can walk
uncloaked without fear and certain words are still forbidden.
I’ll say this: there’s a gate between my hipbones that swings
in certain weather and once when I was twelve, looking
out my bedroom window at cars passing on the highway,
the loneliness of the world walked through.
My hair went bad and I got lost that summer
camping on South Manitou Island, down a green
trail through an abandoned orchard hung with
hard, tart apples. Malus domestica. I’d studied taxonomy
in Biology that spring and I wanted to learn Latin, but my father’s
pants were missing buttons, so in the fall
I’d take Home Ec., learn to fry cheese and sew
a stuffed baseball which my brother would set
on fire with a floor lamp. Underneath those trees, I found
a chimney, then three coffin-shaped fences, rusted,
gateless. “The key to good science is objectivity,” Mr. Nelson
had said, surveying the back row of girls holding
their noses. My rat, pinned open, had smelled like a half-cleaned
toilet, but there was nothing objective about those
graves, the headstones flat pillows, worn nameless. Stacy Campbell A Spectacular Ruin we walked for miles through rough edged years wearing flip flops in the flux of mud forgetting to hold hands for balance sake, transfixed on the past careless of the future I know you could hear me but you talked over me or bore holes through me when desperately needed words could have been a tunicate. Such a long disaster, such a lazy kisser I should have never unpacked. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Stacy
Campbell lives in ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Elizabeth Kate
Switaj Instructions to a Rapist break my hands to fit your gloves you know the ones you don’t
even know what they’re made of latex skin or
underwater where they shrink to strangle pulse of blood & light & breath those rhythms give you away more than fingerprints & DNA they’re everything you’ve heard
and if my hand has no bones it’s yours
so me tell me what our crime will be tell me it isn’t me
who goes away the victim
who can’t forget my hand or some distant point of light can turn an eye ‘s mind into some other somewhere other o tell me it’s not true & I remember Subspecies Variation on the island of lost boys this frog has learned to subsist on mockery & hogshead flies as their chaperones
allow on the island of misfit toys its legs have turned to wings but rarely flies & only w/humility on the island of lost girls this frog has grown fur & puppy eyes to
teach girls what they should love &
feed deep in their breasts but here in this chest of rosewood & cedar I’ve killed the
ones who couldn’t leap until whole generations could escape The we can have a nice
dinner, nice dinner indeed though the eggs in
the breadsticks came from chickens who never touched dirt before they became healthy strips in our salads of wilted lettuce, purple cabbage
looks just fine if we don’t talk about it we can have a nice
dinner, nice dinner indeed without a hint of abattoir
in sausage on red sauce if there’s enough cheese in the
way and we don’t
talk about cows or pigs and if we did we would say abattoir instead of slaughterhouse
or ribs cracked open over concrete
like a Francis Bacon painting we can have a nice
dinner, nice dinner indeed with candles in the
back where there are no
windows
if we don’t talk about who must be passing hungry outside we can have a nice
dinner, nice dinner indeed if we say what makes
this country great
is everything that isn’t like
another country and send anyone that speaks that isn’t like
another to the car to wait we can have a nice
dinner, nice dinner indeed and that’s what
makes us great ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Since
receiving her MFA from the now-defunct New College of California Poetics Program in 2004, Elizabeth Kate Switaj has published
Magdalene & the Mermaids (Paper Kite Press), Shanghai (Gold Wake Press), and The Broken Sanctuary:
Nature Poems (Ypolita Press). She is currently researching James Joyce at Queen’s University Belfast. For more
information, visit Elizabeth Kate Switaj. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sam Rasnake Poem in Two Photographs
The egret waits the morning for a shadow flick just under the surface (measuring itself as though the world is what the eyes see ―
carries in its body that moment of standing hard against a red ball of sky that slips, unnoticed, into dark waters) triangles one leg up, lets down, edges closer to a hidden silence, too determined to be prepared for the dog’s bark ― someone must be walking the far end of the pond ― and so unhinges its long blades of white over cedar and open and rooftop, then down into hushed reeds in back of the empty house whose windows swell with bird, with marsh road, with stories of cloud that drift to troubled seas. š A Scribbling on the Walls
― after viewing Chris Marker’s La Jetée It’s like the dead realizing, finally, they must be dead too, easing into their smoothed and whispered oblivion
― a blot of time, twice-lived, below the
ruins. A man obsessed, a woman, an image of
a face. Isn’t that how it always begins? Trust, disappointment, madness – the scars of more than a lifetime. What is it you look for on this page? Where is it you wander to? ― in the voice’s dark timbre as you breathe the words aloud, as you speak the fear into place ― This is a real table. A real couch, glass cabinet, a fire screen with its painting of pond and heron ― The bamboo plant and bowl, cups of tea, the thimble box ― They’re
all real. The reckoning of a truth is lonely business. When the body fails, or falls, when the
dream implodes of its own weight, and silence
is the story, the eyes opening is what you will most
remember. š Morning Psalm ― for Ralph Coleman, ten years
gone A river of cold incidentals, with its memory of long trout and rocks, smoothed in story One leaf of mountain laurel slips away into shadow, then bend ― then gone The forest wall whispers, the grey sky whispers, and your name, as though it were a bluebird, lands on a branch ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sam Rasnake’s
poetry has appeared in MiPOesias, Pebble Lake Review, Literal Latté, Poetry Midwest, The Dead Mule School of Southern
Literature, From East to West, Siren, Ecotone: Reimagining Place, Portland Review, and BOXCAR Poetry Review. His work has been included in the Best of the Web 2009 anthology (Dzanc Books)
and Deep River Apartments (The Private Press). The author of one chapbook,
Religions of the Blood (Pudding House), and one collection, Necessary Motions (Sow’s Ear Press), he
edits Blue Fifth Review, an online journal of poetry and art. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Gareth Storey Hotel Lungs Sometimes the lines Of other things Break Do you know that sound? When your heart’s plumbing One name Catches In your throat Tongue tied You calculate Old numbers in colours You can’t see It’s finding yourself Welcome On someone’s door Does your camera blur Without losing focus? Down stair sets Each step Wakes you earlier Without stopping You check Cold hotel sheets Air slows A wound Healing ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Gareth
Storey was born in ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
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Feedback, submissions, ideas? E-mail thesmokingpoet@gmail.com |
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