Since the previous issue was all free verse, there's a fair share of formality in this one: "Retribution" is a pantoum (which happens to be one of my favorite forms), "Northern Beach in Bref Double" a bref double of course, and "Coming at the Florist" a golden shovel. Poetry Issues #15, out today:
Retribution
Memory should not be exercised.
Like a packet of quit smokes
it better remain undisturbed
in a locked box in the closet.
Like a packet of quit smokes
I hide your grayscale picture
in a locked box in the closet
in all-encompassing silence.
I hide your grayscale picture
mummified and fossilised
in all-encompassing silence
like an angry ancient god.
Mummified and fossilised
you better remain undisturbed
like an angry ancient god.
Memory should not be exercised.
Northern Beach in Bref Double
They arrived at the haven of bronze sun gods
and said: “We want five ships of fine sand.”
The pale seafarers got nasty sunburns but
were back home in time for the Indian summer.
They strewed it wavy, golden and silvery and
the children combed it by hand for better shells.
Even the fish came out of the sea to check it
when the workers headed home for hot supper.
Once, a lion’s mane jellyfish fell for a seagull
who was cruising the shore for leftovers at
a crowded spot. Before she died dehydrated
they both agreed the sea was their mother.
The children relished at the beast’s bad end
but a sudden limp burdened the seagull’s strut.
B Sides
Inside red apples fat worms inside the letterbox
a rageful cat inside dreams spiraling labyrinths
inside a struggling dignity marginalization inside
a deep-chest scream confinement inside unvarnished
sentences run-down desires inside the doll another
doll inside delusion the need to escape inside.
Sociology or That’s How You Rule the World
Your affordances will be reduced to one
as ecology will variate between
plastic A and concrete B.
As long as you let them engage with
stable fables peasants will trust
that one day they’ll be kings.
Turn sacred symbols into commodities
rob the fruits of their juicy essence
but give the natives beads.
Coming at the Florist
The iron door was left open by nobody
and the black cat assured me it had not
been her. Had I sniffed in the shop even
the slightest trace of evening rose, the
doubts would’ve dispersed. With such rain
it was hard to tell. But only my woman has
this sweet marmite blood that shoots such
piercing scents of love through the small
pores of her sweaty, rosy, cosy hands.
[You will learn more about the Poetry Issues project here.]
