13.
SHE IMAGINES DEATH AFTER WATCHING A MOVIE
TRAILER
WITH A SIMILAR PLOT:
AN
ENTICEMENT IGNORED
When the sun was in my
gut: blood, black molasses. A tongue
dipped in gold and
dried. When eyes drifted brain-ward, the
heavens sang: black
powder, cordite, nitrocellulose. I asked the
chamber if I’m shot in
the gut would I fold forward around the
wound or lift my chest
up, expose. When the sun was elsewhere.
Despite that. Even
though. So what of it, the chamber replied.
Would you even know if
you’d cave in or release. How could
that happen if you’d
already left. Good point, I thought. The
barrel said nothing.
When the well by the pines was full only
with armfuls of air.
Note the way I didn’t say spoonful or earful.
Anything can brim over
spoon or ear or arm. It’s the size that
matters. The arms
outstretched; this is a spanning. A contraction
of the gut and a
whistling charm. Shoulders farther forward than
the ribcage. Knees
slightly bent. Or, conversely, watch as the
neck stops holding the
head, watch as the head with its brain-
bound eyes tilts back
behind all. Feel the sun in my stomach.
This silly mauve carpet,
this rocking horse in the back basement
room, this glass of
lemonade on the black granite counter. Ice.
Also, it rained spiders
in Brazil last week. Before all, there was a
baptism. And above this,
crucifixion. And lastly, I said, the bullet
is not the sun. It is a
token of heat, a variable, a vial of ash.
*
12.
Salutation
Red. I think of
the color
red that slides down her
throat
as she takes communion.
I have never partaken,
but
I know this is not
merlot.
She drinks cranberry
juice with
only 5% real fruit.
She rises. Takes the ladder
two rungs at a time.
Breathless, but she
maintains focus. The stars
will not wait for her.
You
will not wait for her.
Zigzag from comfort
to discomfort, then back
again.
She will break and enter for you.
She will drink her 40
draft
with you
before she leans over
and waits for you to
kiss
her tired mouth.
~Suzanne Savickas~
*
11.
Artifact
archaic sepia tone.
thread barren
pastiche. china
plates chipped
before broken in the
fireplace.
snapped. they
crackle. a
conundrum for minutes.
the lattice
left open.
tormented wind
breezes into the vacant
cracked
spaces.
juxtaposition. they receive
chills. five
minutes or less.
in 65 seconds:
the girl will dance where there are
no dance floors.
who needs a tutu?
or laced slippers.
i will keep her in
line. pirouette
without a fall. trace
toe tips before the
floor boards.
spaces between and
spiraled
under. cyanotype
triptych. the
middle was not her.
to comprehend the big picture, she
would have to leap off
the slick plank.
drift towards the edge
before reentrance back.
~Suzanne Savickas~
*
10
Illuminated Mechanics
I
I read about Robert
Pinsky’s robots. Your dreams become nightmares about aliens. I am
no longer beside you. The multi-colored, tin robot clenches its
mechanical fist.
II
I know where you have
gone, but you do not know where I have landed. The robot never reacts as
a puppet. With batteries, it is free to roam. To explore. “To
fuck or fight” makes no difference. The robot will not eat you. The
robot will not run in circles.
III
The Nightmare
Illuminates.
~Suzanne Savickas~
*
9.
reincarnated capacitor
I swaddle the murk
so nothing seeps through.
Crows have the cutest malevolence.
People talk in circles
and walk in circles
but don't believe in circles.
I will be reborn as a billiard ball
taped to a telephone wire.
*
8.
the ghost horse of a cheap motel knife
With beer I make bars for me to be safe in before I'm thirty.
When I'm thirty I drink beer in bars to be safe before I die.
When I die I make beer safe in thirty bars before I'm born.
People think stuff is fun which is really super great.
I'm not depressed. I have vitamins and facts so
everything will always happen. Dear cereal box illustrator:
Buy me a cabin in Devonshire and I'll make the sheep behave.
What I want is so vague
*
7.
Elementary
The grade school blackboard
still shimmers beneath
the canvas
window shades
in the evening sun
a residual coating
of white powder,
the caustic aroma of
chalk dust
that stole our
collective breath;
cryptic markings
of an antiquated
stranglehold of ideas
designed to stamp our
minds
as we patiently
progressed
along the class-structured
assembly line
like the cloned seed
pods
of our elders.
~Ben Rasnic~
*
6.
6.
Childhood Photo
In this black & white photo,
I am smiling, no, I am
slightly grinning;
the elliptic curve of my
mouth
skewed to the upper
left, perhaps
from the daily routine
of butchering Elvis
impersonations,
but I think more likely
from the reality
I was always ordered
to smile
whenever the camera
aimed in my direction,
yet I could never
in all honesty,
totally
oblige.
~Ben Rasnic~
*
5.
Dear woman with her water breaking
Don't panic: you will remain the same. Your soon to be
daughter never learns scribble-scrabble, she will
read Yeats by nine and become a pornographer with
squat cups, a straight spine. You teach her the scope
of an opened mouth - how far you can take someone.
Be still, for once, and you'll soon be the demagogue
you always wanted. And then there's forever, as in,
your mornings. As in, you hover like any horrible day
hovers. Your daughter never learns the proper way
to place her fingers into the scissor's holes. Listen, don't
listen to theories. Your daughter will not marry a man
like her father - like her mother. She will become an orator,
and owe it all to you.
Don't panic: you will remain the same. Your soon to be
daughter never learns scribble-scrabble, she will
read Yeats by nine and become a pornographer with
squat cups, a straight spine. You teach her the scope
of an opened mouth - how far you can take someone.
Be still, for once, and you'll soon be the demagogue
you always wanted. And then there's forever, as in,
your mornings. As in, you hover like any horrible day
hovers. Your daughter never learns the proper way
to place her fingers into the scissor's holes. Listen, don't
listen to theories. Your daughter will not marry a man
like her father - like her mother. She will become an orator,
and owe it all to you.
(previously published in the chapbook 309.81 - dancing girl press)
*
4.
How
I Live Here
Silicone
spills out like the ocean
into
the inter-coastal; beneath bra
cups
and inside lips - nothing here
but
the smell of sea-salt stripping away
paint.
Windows never pull shut. Wind
weeps
through cracks;
my
mother’s last breath before
her
eyes collapsed. My neighbor builds
a
wooden walkway: his
crippled wife
anchors
legs from step to doorway –
I
imagine her sigh when the sky closes
as
she fights the walk to her bedroom.
My
father measures then mixes
clinic
take-homes offered for good
behavior
but when his eyes blink, all I see
is
the needle push. My grandmother calls,
tells
me her husband’s mind is slipping
away
like her grown children. She prays to god
to
take him home and
take
her, too. My daughter points out
a
pink house with palm growing
on
the front lawn, asks if she can have it.
I
sit silently, pity those who believe
in
a promised land.
*
3.
When insects wear their Sunday best
I hear the buzz, the church bell
tolls
and flies crawl on a pile of shit
outside the cathedral
black cherubs
Sunday brunch, smoky
incense filters out of the altar
church doors open black
flies feast on dog shit
and flies crawl on a pile of shit
outside the cathedral
black cherubs
Sunday brunch, smoky
incense filters out of the altar
church doors open black
flies feast on dog shit
And children in
their Sunday best
play tag on the church steps, pretend
childhood lies, the insects
feast on bullshit, too
it’s Sunday noon in Mexico
the people vanish out to the plaza
like the desaparecidos, the taken
flies feast on this country’s corpse
play tag on the church steps, pretend
childhood lies, the insects
feast on bullshit, too
it’s Sunday noon in Mexico
the people vanish out to the plaza
like the desaparecidos, the taken
flies feast on this country’s corpse
*
2.
Ghazal
for Espionage in Books Arts
Buried in attic piled prints relatives have annexed,
She is inclined to recarve old blocks to alter texts.
Renumber series of woodcuts in shame ratios,
Liberally scratch out with sharpies to halt the text.
Examine figure paintings for fingerprints and signature,
Smear out eyes, mascara flakes detach to salt the text.
Chop lemons for litmus paper, embed a layer for ultraviolet,
Leave ammonia fumes, drops of cobalt chloride, ink blot out the text.
Was it in the fields or mismatched fonts, in the stray hairs,
Mounted in the imprints of spider gauze over the text?
She wanted to move the letters of his name to spell out
Another version of his character, a decidedly faltered text.
An umbrella of glue and adhesive, choked with dust and book marrow,
Touched lightly in dried inks, he’d carved his cruelty in altered texts.
Buried in attic piled prints relatives have annexed,
She is inclined to recarve old blocks to alter texts.
Renumber series of woodcuts in shame ratios,
Liberally scratch out with sharpies to halt the text.
Examine figure paintings for fingerprints and signature,
Smear out eyes, mascara flakes detach to salt the text.
Chop lemons for litmus paper, embed a layer for ultraviolet,
Leave ammonia fumes, drops of cobalt chloride, ink blot out the text.
Was it in the fields or mismatched fonts, in the stray hairs,
Mounted in the imprints of spider gauze over the text?
She wanted to move the letters of his name to spell out
Another version of his character, a decidedly faltered text.
An umbrella of glue and adhesive, choked with dust and book marrow,
Touched lightly in dried inks, he’d carved his cruelty in altered texts.
*
1.
They Called for an
Ambulance Though All Agreed
there was no rush, no
siren needed
for the robber,
peppered,
dead amid the shards.
They approached her as
if to poke
a still snake, a possum
stretched
rigid on a lawn.
As if retracted within
her appendages were blades waiting
for them to step one
foot, one foot closer, step
within the sudden,
sweeping range of her stiffening arms.
~Paul David Adkins~
