The skins we'd splayed whipped
from their nylon cords. We dropped
the cliffs and buggered out; the tent
was lost. Black ropes of sky
swayed from our ears like kelp. Our steps
made pits and waned and fell
and waned and fell and were undone.
I jumped
the rise; when I got up, there you were,
white as time. Then
sharks sang in my guts, unchanged,
unphased, ten billion years.
Black mussel, I've been silent, but I have not been
unseen. Inside the sea-green husk,
things have been
going on.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
A Nearly Naked Man
Why have you worn shoes in the shower?
It was a choice you made upon realizing that you forgot your sandals...
an easy choice, given the amount of foot traffic in this locker room...
an easy choice, after learning the hard way.
It was a choice you made upon realizing that you forgot your sandals...
an easy choice, given the amount of foot traffic in this locker room...
an easy choice, after learning the hard way.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Brian R. Young --In Praise of the Cow
1.
Star watcher, source of the Milky Way, unflinching gazer,
you are The Thinker not carved by human tools,
the patient mother and father, the worrier of cud, the muller.
You are the choir of gently humming mills,
the thunder cloud, the observer
of the sun as it falls and rises.
You are exposed to the elements, yet impervious.
You are the restless chorus the crickets ignore.
Blessed giver of fecundity, it was you
who conceived the first numbers—one
and two—it was you who kept count—one two,
one two—of the steps, and though others
have gone on to count higher, it is you
who keeps the first numbers
for when they return. Your heart
of iron knows they will. You are
the cliffs by the ocean of clover.
Weave Magazine
Star watcher, source of the Milky Way, unflinching gazer,
you are The Thinker not carved by human tools,
the patient mother and father, the worrier of cud, the muller.
You are the choir of gently humming mills,
the thunder cloud, the observer
of the sun as it falls and rises.
You are exposed to the elements, yet impervious.
You are the restless chorus the crickets ignore.
Blessed giver of fecundity, it was you
who conceived the first numbers—one
and two—it was you who kept count—one two,
one two—of the steps, and though others
have gone on to count higher, it is you
who keeps the first numbers
for when they return. Your heart
of iron knows they will. You are
the cliffs by the ocean of clover.
Weave Magazine
Steven Barthelme : Nice Boy
"But," I said, slow, "we didn't order a thousand rabbits." Irresolute, uncertain. People push me around. I remembered a voice, a shabby man in Boston, my boss, saying, when he fired me, "You're a nice boy, Nick. But you're slow."
"They're bunnies," the skinny guy said. He had the brown clothes, the brown truck. "Everyone likes bunnies. For one rabbit, we sell six bunnies. Sign here." He tapped his clipboard with the pen. They were hopping on each other, pinkish, on my porch, crowding the door, open a few inches. The lawn was covered with them, you couldn't see the grass. I kicked one back with my boot.
The guy gave me a look. "That one has a heart condition," he said, and touched his chest. "He can't take much stress." I looked at his name, above his pocket, embroidered: N. But when I looked again, it said: Nikolai. It's my name, I thought.
No, I thought. I said, "What's this, this forty dollars down here?"
"I mowed your lawn," he said. "Look. Don't give me a hard time. We have people for people who give us a hard time." Gestured toward his truck.
There's nobody in that goddamn truck, I thought. I grabbed his throat. "Look," I said, pressing with my thumbs. "I just want you to like me, to think well of me."
But rabbits were streaming past me into my living room. The brown guy started coughing, choking, jerking, and then his eyes rolled back and he fell, ripped from my hand. Dead. My God. I hadn't meant to— He was threatening me, bullying me, with rabbits I didn't order, work I didn't hire. You could see the lawn now, he had mowed it.
Two shadowy people in the brown clothes were coming up the walk. Out by the truck a dozen more, loitering. Oh, Jesus.
"What have you done to your brother?" my mother said, in the shorts and khaki shirt. She held an iron plugged into a fat orange extension cord which rose across the yard, over the house across the street, and out of sight. My father stood there with a flat expression.
I looked down at the dead man. It was Andy, my brother.
Mother pushed the iron at me. Steam was blowing out of it, out of the arc of little holes. Why doesn't she offer me the handle? I thought. Her expression wasn't motherly. "Well, hurry up," she said. "You want him to die?"
My father was whispering to a rabbit on his shoulder. Inside the house rabbits had arranged themselves in three impossibly straight rows on the floor, the seat and back of the couch, murmuring like in a theater before the movie. Others milled around on the carpet making wrinkly faces. Maybe two dozen left in the yard.
I knelt down with the iron. I imagined myself floating in my brother's bloodstream pressing junk back against the walls of his arteries or veins or whatever I was in, crying. The dark blood raced along, carrying me with it, thick and sour-tasting.
"Jesus Christ, not that way," my father said. "Do you want to burn him?" He grabbed the iron from my hand, like always, and drew it gently back and forth over the body, the iron moving like a toy boat riding the bathwater, in slow motion, beautiful, in the expert way my father had done everything his whole life long. Everything stopped.
My brother opened his eyes, stood up uncertainly, an expression blooming on his face.
Rabbits hopped over each other, cheering, in that humming way that rabbits cheer. "Stop that hopulating," my father said, fiercely, but the rabbits ignored him, went right on cheering. Andy, smiling. I was cheering, too. I am a nice boy, but I'm slow.
Gulf Stream #3
"They're bunnies," the skinny guy said. He had the brown clothes, the brown truck. "Everyone likes bunnies. For one rabbit, we sell six bunnies. Sign here." He tapped his clipboard with the pen. They were hopping on each other, pinkish, on my porch, crowding the door, open a few inches. The lawn was covered with them, you couldn't see the grass. I kicked one back with my boot.
The guy gave me a look. "That one has a heart condition," he said, and touched his chest. "He can't take much stress." I looked at his name, above his pocket, embroidered: N. But when I looked again, it said: Nikolai. It's my name, I thought.
No, I thought. I said, "What's this, this forty dollars down here?"
"I mowed your lawn," he said. "Look. Don't give me a hard time. We have people for people who give us a hard time." Gestured toward his truck.
There's nobody in that goddamn truck, I thought. I grabbed his throat. "Look," I said, pressing with my thumbs. "I just want you to like me, to think well of me."
But rabbits were streaming past me into my living room. The brown guy started coughing, choking, jerking, and then his eyes rolled back and he fell, ripped from my hand. Dead. My God. I hadn't meant to— He was threatening me, bullying me, with rabbits I didn't order, work I didn't hire. You could see the lawn now, he had mowed it.
Two shadowy people in the brown clothes were coming up the walk. Out by the truck a dozen more, loitering. Oh, Jesus.
"What have you done to your brother?" my mother said, in the shorts and khaki shirt. She held an iron plugged into a fat orange extension cord which rose across the yard, over the house across the street, and out of sight. My father stood there with a flat expression.
I looked down at the dead man. It was Andy, my brother.
Mother pushed the iron at me. Steam was blowing out of it, out of the arc of little holes. Why doesn't she offer me the handle? I thought. Her expression wasn't motherly. "Well, hurry up," she said. "You want him to die?"
My father was whispering to a rabbit on his shoulder. Inside the house rabbits had arranged themselves in three impossibly straight rows on the floor, the seat and back of the couch, murmuring like in a theater before the movie. Others milled around on the carpet making wrinkly faces. Maybe two dozen left in the yard.
I knelt down with the iron. I imagined myself floating in my brother's bloodstream pressing junk back against the walls of his arteries or veins or whatever I was in, crying. The dark blood raced along, carrying me with it, thick and sour-tasting.
"Jesus Christ, not that way," my father said. "Do you want to burn him?" He grabbed the iron from my hand, like always, and drew it gently back and forth over the body, the iron moving like a toy boat riding the bathwater, in slow motion, beautiful, in the expert way my father had done everything his whole life long. Everything stopped.
My brother opened his eyes, stood up uncertainly, an expression blooming on his face.
Rabbits hopped over each other, cheering, in that humming way that rabbits cheer. "Stop that hopulating," my father said, fiercely, but the rabbits ignored him, went right on cheering. Andy, smiling. I was cheering, too. I am a nice boy, but I'm slow.
Gulf Stream #3
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Call for Submissions
The Superstition Review, Arizona State University's literary magazine, want submissions for their spring edition.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Having a Coke with You
is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles
and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them
I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully
as the horse
it seems they were all cheated of some marvellous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I’m telling you about it
--Frank O’Hara, from The Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara, 1971.
is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles
and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them
I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully
as the horse
it seems they were all cheated of some marvellous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I’m telling you about it
--Frank O’Hara, from The Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara, 1971.
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