2010-07-06T18:37:00.000-07:00

13.

From The Exhibit

I.
The exhibit is instructional. On the black curtain, words ripple; an alphabet of light vanishing. Here is the first specimen: hieroglyphs cover the fabric that shrouds the body from head to foot. The body that has been folded into an impossibility. Or: the smallness of form. There are places we do not trespass. There are places we must let others trespass. All that can be done is to hold breath until the river. The bones become transparent, highlighting the teeth. A static-jammed thing you were told late at night, a question you were made to answer. The exhibit says you must. The specimens in their glass boats say, we can wait. In the mirror, you see your child self: With the boy, you built traps for the girl/with the girl, you built traps for the boy. Here is the knotted rope, here are the hickory slats and splinters of bone. The exhibit says, they can only belong to you.

III.
We had been thinking the exhibit was about love, but it turned out to be something else. When we passed the vined archway, you said you'd been in this room before. The guards were skeptical. Neat rows of lampposts. Maps out of their frames and upside-down. Each map will lead you to a certain room. You will be surprised by your feelings. You will be surprised by the boundaries. There is a key that locks this door, and another that unlocks it. The exhibitors have hidden both in a barrel of sand that children dig through. The sand refills itself. If you come to the exhibit in the morning, you are allowed to touch. If you come at night, you are not. And if you visit the exhibit in your sleep, only it is allowed to touch you. You can sob all night, but you have to wait it out.

~Lauren Eggert-Crowe~

*

12.

BEDTIME

We are hanging your dreams
On the cheap clothesline out back.
They turn and flap and shake
Their dreary colors out, growing crisp
And foreign, a community project.

Tonight we are going to turn you into
Thursday’s meatloaf, a bundle of dry.

We have the schematics of your play.
Even blind-man’s-bluff has a pattern:
We can follow that design and forever
Find you at your permitted point of action.
We will be the nightmare in the execution.

How does it feel to be
A managed member of a manipulated set?

We have the octopus that should
Have eaten you: the bounty of tentacles,
The inky confidence, his antique dreams
Of the shell, of drawing you in
To be the sleeping pearl covered
In secretions never to be mistaken for tears:
Years of grinding: years, grinding.

Your dreams. And your sorry,
Predictable play: childhood aspirations
Revealed in the night’s dreams of games and
The reward at the end of the sandman tunnel.
Sleep, you bastard.

~Ken Poyner~

*

11.

DRESS UP DAY

Clouds wearing funny hats.
One in a lime green dress
And heels.
Another cloud in a fake turtle neck.
One has a tie but no shirt.
A cumulo-nimbus with chaps
And a leather vest. Two
In strapless plunging tops
Have a weatherman by the arm
And are trying to condense upstairs.
The cirrus order another round of dust
For everyone. So many costumes,
So little true mockery.
Moisture drifts in at the seaside window
And clouds are growing rotund,
Lethargic, and dropping in altitude.
One, in an off-the-shoulder
Cut away shift, marvels at the time,
Is content to leave the party alone.
Each to his own weather.
By two a.m. all of them will be a
Happily strung suspension again.
And, in the morning,
Rain.

~Ken Poyner~

*

10.

APPRECIATION

The eggs are singing.
From inside each
Potential birds are practicing
The laments of their miniscule lives’
Directionless genetic pull. The shell
Can darken the sound
But I still pick up
Those rumpled notes of morning,
The roosting jingles,
The banality that simply comes out
As patterns of dimly, mathematically
Elegant vibrations. I settle
My ear against the mottled blue,
Thinking that in spite of the noise
These are not nearly enough -
With the small end of the oval
Pinched out and the slurry air let in,
With workmanlike access to the mouthful of magic -
Not nearly enough for a child’s breakfast,
Or a man’s sufficient energy
To move on to the nest trilling next.

~Ken Poyner~

*

9.

THE PLEASANTRY

There is a pink rhinoceros
Wearing blue knee socks
In the median of Interstate 264:
This main corridor where a city
Loads itself every day with workers,
Emptying the suburbs.
The cars slip by in mostly
One direction, feasts of energy
Stacking the power grid against one
Of only two balancing sides.
It is not something you see every day:
Knee socks on a rhinoceros.

~Ken Poyner~

*

8.

Bride in the Tree

My dress swirls, snags in the branches.
The veil drapes my head except a bit of eyes
so I can watch the commuters below me drive to work.

They think I am just a dress: one more bit of white
amongst the winter scenery. Unnoticeable,
but for the wind inflating the tulle.

Gloves gobbled my hands. My grandmother warned me:
brides’ legs shrivel beneath the church bell of their skirts,
but I didn’t believe her.

The dress was so heavy at the shop,
but since my wedding day, I floated.
A gust caught me: an umbrella lifted to the tree top.

The wind seems strong enough to shake me loose,
but the tree holds on to me with so many hands;
the stuck dress enmeshed.

~Valerie Loveland~

*

7.

Anxiety

I keep a vat of acid inside at all times,
there are bone clubs in my thighs, a heart
that will beat me to death.

My thoughts, a scratched record, stuck
on my least favorite part of the song.

My sisters and I had a meeting
after our mother was fitted with a pacemaker
to calm her rapid heart rate. We agreed:
their nervous hives make them resemble pink cheetahs.

I am aware my nerves branch like lightning,
they carry sparks.
Can I douse the electricity?
I am an electric city.

Benjamin Franklin made too many jokes
about me shocking his key.

Thomas Edison’s head evolves more and more light-bulb-shaped.
He stared at my volts too long, touched me
more than necessary while strapping on the electrodes.

Nikola Tesla arrived to study me, saw the way I was dressed,
and left immediately. He came back,
said he would make an exception, just this once.

~Valerie Loveland~

*

6.

MARITIME LAW SHMERITIME LAW EVERY MAN WOMAN ANIMAL AND CHILD FOR THEMSELVES GO

As the slave trade becomes the orchard assault
upon daily & reasonable functionality
I maintain that the sixties were the most pitiful years
in America's baby book
Granted I wasn't alive
but you don't need to be inside the club
you just need to be sleeping in the alley
to hear how shitty the music can get
I am growing fat I am growing fat
& much more honest than ever before
Now when I meet a redhead at some party I don't want to be in
but in which I find myself anyways I say look
I have this fungus
Mainly it occupies my back
& last summer all of my chest
but that seems to be deteriorating alright
It's certainly benign I know because it's been there for years
It's also never transferred to anybody else I've ever rubbed against
I just don't want you to be alarmed if our relationship comes to that point
This is of course all a hypothetical plan in case the situation arises
I don't really go to parties & when I do everybody seems blond
O where was I O yes articulating that I was a snowflake
of consummate & varied value & also chili-pepper
is no good for your wounds
Why don't you try vanilla extract
Mexican vanilla extract
That's a wives tale
from New Hampshire
So you know that's some truth to take home to hubby
before you let him bleed
all over the recently installed
Venetians

~Joseph Goosey~

*

5.

ZAPRUDER, YOU SADSAC, SHOWING UP IN THE TITLES OF MY GIRLFRIENDS POEMS

I had to Google you.
I was concerned you lived in the area.
You don't live in the area.
Unless your internet info is out of date.
Which is possible.
Take for instance mine,
for which - admittedly and rudely Matthew
you've yet to ask -
it's woefully out of date.
Red head?
Two Cats?
WORK?
Granted I still like red-heads,
but none of them and myself are currently speaking.
My mom's got some cats. I had one
but she usurped it. I had a fish too
but it had a heart attack on the way down
from D.C. and WORK?
WORK, ZAPRUDER?
Maybe you know about work
and maybe you don't.
Not to say I'm necessarily picking lettuce under Kern County sun,
but I don't exactly drink lemon drops
without engaging in rash,
something to which I'm sure you take for granted.
Now, Zapruder, world will think we know one another.
But we don't.
But we could.
Do you wanna come hang?
I've got Laundry.
We could fold.
Discuss the state
of whatever you prefer.

~Joseph Goosey~

*

4.

ANKOU, REAPER OF DEATH

One foggy night on route 19,
the van broke down,
coming to rest
at the side of the road
with one last splutter and cough.
Linda curled up in my arms,
used my warmth as a shield
against curtains of mist
that rippled in like ghosts of rain.

Suddenly, I heard the creaking cart,
the snorting of oxen,
neigh of his lean horse,
and he slipped into
the arc of moonlight,
white locks slipping down his shoulders,
grim jangling skeleton draped
by folds of black shroud,
and the scythe on his shoulder,
bloodied, ready for more harvesting.

“Is that Triple A.” asked Linda,
chaining herself to my arms.

~John Grey~

*

3.

OUR BURNING MAN FESTIVAL

Saw him on the staircase,
flames leaping from his eyes, his ears.
Watched his spiraling orange body
burst out the door,
tear across the front lawn,
sparking roses, sizzling grass,
lighting the fence posts like candle wicks.
Like one great human fireball,
he sped down that road,
burning up as quickly
as his legs drove forward.
It was a day or two
before a strong wind
blew his ashes back to us.
Cold and gray this time.

No fun.

~John Grey~

*

2.

NIGHT SOUNDS

at night,
defunct autumn woods
hand over deadly weapons
to the dying insects
who chirp lovingly
of the handsome man
whose flesh
they recently devoured

~John Grey~

*

1.

Where Blue Fires Blaze

There are two matching beds in one pink room
a pink shag carpet and identical ruffled duvets.
Two sisters sleep on opposite beds,
always facing away, one from the other.

The first sister spends her nights tumbling down Niagara Falls
in a whiskey barrel only to wake up and find everyone
gone from the house, distant voices droning beyond the walls
the entire world racked in fever.

The second sister becomes a velvet painted girl hung in a basement
her ribs broken open -- her fortune-paper head
nodding yes nodding no
the careful sister who washes all the dishes without being asked
and tries not to stare too long at the sun, fearing blindness.

Where one sleepwalks,
the other sister follows, a slow circumnavigation of the bedroom’s perimeter
knife in hand, tonguing crumbs in antithesis
while avoiding the moss-covered hallway
which invokes delirium at its widest shore.
Their amphibious poses betray disdain
and the desire to murder with stones.

How interesting to not be hunted down with every possible dagger
though it would hardly feel like love anymore.

~Kelly Boyker~

Thirteen Myna Birds