beauty did not take her where she wished to go
a cheating spouse, it stayed out late
returned home in the early hours
She takes a hammer. smashes her life. to smithereens.
Cherilyn Sarkisian rocks on.
He collects her stories
holds them in his palm
fingers them
smooth
rubs away details
until they taste
like moss, or earth
soaked by rain
The Explosion of September 19, 1951
he lost himself, the moment the explosion took his breath away
a flashpoint; he saw his future unravel beyond the window frame
lost himself as smoke smudged the sky orange and grey
sepia and silver nitrate, time-stained and measured by yesterday
a newspaper photograph of the accident; a toll: the dredge’s claim
he lost himself, [...]
This is a Wordle of the poem posted here: http://valeriebeanonline.biz/2010/06/06/theory-of-illumination/
Eleven years in the making, his mistress
grabs the night. Eyes down, she holds out
a piece of meat cooked; he eats
from her fingers. Ceramic plates, fractured
in the trash bin, breakfast eaten in a hall closet.
She pushes his voice under water, listening
with an unforgiving shrug, blinks her way
through dinner parties. Each night she falls asleep
to the music [...]
Tanka #1
the dark sky dropped
poured itself into footsteps
a rose, quieted
she pinches eggs from next door
and sells them for ice cream
Based on the poem “A Rose Quieted” from the chapbook Brushing Back History.
Tanka #2
metal biting thing
exposes pulp pink flesh
water marries beads
of blood that took seventeen
stitches to thread together
Based on the poem “Seventeen Stitches” from the [...]
later two uniforms step up mother
shakes me awake her stuttering hands
nervous butterflies my shoulders escorted to parked
cruiser in navy blue silence handcuffs
After the rain, the wind died in front of him. It
flowed down
the river, upright. The turbulence showed the
grass its seat,
and even the book seemed greener
than the shoes on his feet.
He grabbed the sun on either side,
directed the clouds to turn left,
but the clouds landed, grey and deflated,
in a yellow plastic pail. He clenched
his teeth, looked [...]
The landscape of your sorrow: a house
fallen, in the dark. You follow him
A silver pendant drawn against my neck;
its metal mouth open. Rain pellets tap
the window, like impatient fingertips.
She drops to her knees, carrots and beets pulled from the garden moments earlier spill from her arms, cheek against soil, next to the memory of home.
O love, you were born before
midnight moments before the next day
the breaking of the skin, the breaking
of the sun, movement and flutter of air
midnight moments before the next day
at the exact moment you entered this world
of the sun, movement and flutter of air
beginning, the only ceremony
at the exact moment you entered this world
small prayers [...]
Male butterflies visit their favourite watering hole
where they collect sale to give as a gift in mating
the crow that flew into the greenhouse to greet
my father; it was time to go
Born of hammers and chisels
quarry men spend darkened days
She looked to Hera for answers
but the goddess was busy tending
to the marital bliss of others.
You climbed through a hole in the Earth’s
surface, through height, cold, beauty,
through depth, heat, emptiness. I climbed
to greet the sister who fell from the sky,
just as a son rose to meet me.
Gods gave us the power of dreams.
In fabricated photographs, we press our selves
into ceremony as crown dancers bless the way
before us. We watch tobacco [...]
Nanabijou
in his eternal sleep
lies beneath the rocky sky
betrayed by an impostor, double-crossed
you stand on the November shore
wearing earrings made of fisheyes
staring at the Spirit of the Deep Sea Water
your feet press scrub flat
the wind wraps
your shoulders in a shawl
you crush his ring in your fist
its stone bleeds
you think of treachery, lift your hands
in offering
ashes tumble [...]
Rocks collide inside her skull
souvenirs of Lac des Mille Lacs
music pushes through tweeters and woofers
as blunt and metallic as her lover’s passion
a careless hatchback
answers her throaty call of desire
tosses a handful of stones
at the thrum of his anger
coupled in a slow dance with hillside scrub
uproots thistle, ragweed
mounts a boulder
furrows deeper
shattered bits of windshield bleed
her third [...]