where is the river :: a poetry experiment

Nisha Bolsey :: Four poems Megan Cassiday :: Four poems DM O'Connor :: Three poems James Croal Jackson :: Four poems

  An Effigy for Saint Jude Honey sweet confessions And a vibrant peach mouth. Sore, lazy tongue Embarrass me from a pulpit- Sounds of a tired church symphony. Worshipping behind the pews Where you call me by name. Make me drink the bitter wine, Metallic, swollen lips Pressed against the chest of a saint.  Rub holy water on your palms And kneel at a broken window. Cut my hair with a shard of glass, Offer it to a cherub, softly- And count the tolling of a bell.      Eulogy for a Sweetheart Poppies in early June, Staining clenched finger tips red - The color of skin against violently soft words. Quiet lovers in open fields Planting seeds next to wildfires.     Hurricane Season Your fingertips against mine Moving up                        up       up Touch my lips to find your name- The one your mother gave you.   It rained the nigh...

  September Pool Rental Lost that social muscle, backstroke that splashes all the  words my mouth wants to say but needs weed  for, the weeds overgrowing in the far  away wild. My back patio’s  unbearable, its familiarity. I want  a pool, or someone new to dive into  my mind and stay a while.     28 th Street Bridge Every time I drive the 28th St. Bridge I always make the joke to myself– should I really be driving on this?   It's a paunchy punchline to no one and still I apologize for it– a comment on the bridge's chipped green paint and rusted  hinges, the (perceivedly) rickety short-distance, its creaking (I don’t hear a thing). How close I've been to a laugh, some snicker  into an abyss– I've said much worse to people and not apologized, driving over the strip after a fight with my lover, suspended  in the air a silence like tracking a FedEx truck with a package you know will reach you but...

  Clark While running in the woods near Foz do Arelho, just below Nazaré, Clark Middleton’s face popped into my head. Where is that guy? How is that guy? I liked that guy. Then my thoughts shifted to the pink migrating cranes eucalyptus rows fishermen’s bootprints hunter’s huts ripples on the lagoon.   Clark was an actor in New York, born with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. His head was huge, couldn’t move his neck. Had a permanently locked elbow, tiny bird hands. Clark told me once, I could do anything, we have the world in our hands, just squeeze. And Clark did with David Lynch, Ang Lee, Quentin Tarantino, Richard Linklater, Richard Rodriguez and others… Remember Miracle Mile? When on stage, plant yourself and tell the truth. Clark studied and taught all his life. We never said good-bye, just drifted apart, remember when you could? The internet of work or life never brought us together again and to be honest, I’d forgotten Clark completely until he made his cameo in m...

   Half-Filled Cups of Water, Collecting Dust I. Five ft. rubber tree balloons & shoes & things  the soap is running low again it’s because I keep pumping the dispenser three, four times concealing both palms completely in foam.  I don’t remember the last time I wore jewelry on my wrists. The glass bangles were purchased for a funeral (actually, a celebration of life)  at Deck the Neck on Devon they were the cheapest ones they had— the shop owner warned me that the glass is brittle, the sparkles will fall off, etc.  I wrapped the full set in three little cloth pouches to take on the plane. In the end, none of my family members complained  that the bangles were silver even though my choli was gold  the sari itself was bright orange and I was jealous of my brother  his cream kurta with crimson salwaar tall and with guitar  singing Girl from Ipanema for our aunts & uncles   II. Light comin...