Thirteen Myna Birds

17.

Everything I Touched Became a Wound

Mania gave me summer in an envelope;

the red light within my bones

glowing. It shaped my bones into its hunting coat

until blue came without warning

& I felt the failing brightness of my skin sink

deeper into darkness.

(I think some things should be left unsaid.)

Gray is beautiful, cold, the color of deep

regret. I felt wind dawn upon my face

& time hold me by a whisper.

(Put your hand there; you’ll feel it too.)

Life’s too simple for speech & words no longer come.

Equilibrium came to me quiet as rain

not fallen, afraid of how I might fail myself,

my dress kept open in memory, bearing breast,

sex, smelling worn, of boys, of once long grass, of heart.

It came quiet as bulbs not yet broken out

into sunlight. I tried not to hurt, yet everything

I touched became a wound.

I was afraid that if I found peace,

it would scald my hands.

~Ariana D. Den Bleyker~

*

16.

I’ve Let My Nails Grow, Scars Later Revealing Themselves

After Bathing as if a Developing Photograph

As always, I want to sidestep the pain

& let it take residence until it rots.

[Maybe the pain outside is easier to handle

because we know how to fix it:

cold water for burn, ice pack for bruise,

bandage for cut, cast for broken bone,

kisses for boo-boo—what’s inside a little harder.]

Maybe the blossoming of the new year will change me.

No one else will ever want to kill me like I do—

in that place where heartbeat lingers:

somewhere between hospital bed sheets

& newfound aching in the chest

where voices talk to fill a silent void.

When the happiness scabs over, who’ll make up

excuses for why I can’t return home?

All I’ve ever known is to be grateful I didn’t die,

that I’ve lived through my crucible & am now free—

Admittedly, there’s real allure in the way the past doesn’t die.

~Ariana D. Den Bleyker~

*

15.

I Go Crazy in Late October as Depression Cuts

the Endless Summer Cold

A finger prick beads blood not so red, not so thick

& I’ve felt no pain sitting here dreaming

of blood, knives. Or didn’t. Or haven’t. Or won’t.

Everything alludes to my mood. This taste,

for instance, this taste of depression runs blood orange-red

down the hollow of my throat. Its neck tastes

of honey, honey easy on the tongue.

I want to eat up the past, smell its raw meat

gleaning against its bones, against its ribcage. Strange cage,

imprisoning nothing. I’m bones too, lungs with no

hope to breathe. No more than a moment about

to expire. I crave dreams of craving something carnal,

patient beginnings. It comes up to this: I grow new scars,

watch the clouds douse the sun, the birds who’ll soon

again sow their winter gliding off against the night,

against the swollen moon with talons full

& so I open the door to my memory

& toss what is blue into the air, watch part of me fly

away. The movement without movement

of my body keeps everything moving.

I hate living only because I’ve practiced hating

myself. I’ve always longed for places I shouldn’t go:

the cast out blackness of shadow, dark alleys, symbolic death.

I’m not ready to let go. What it means or could mean

is not yet fixed nor could be. Go on, there’s no room

for sadness now. Soon there will be no resting place.

~Ariana D. Den Bleyker~

*

14.

Bird On Fire

Self-fanning wings

a species without a

safety protocol

[Drop and roll, drop and roll]

Feathers on fire

there’ll be no morning song

I can’t get near enough to stop

blue flames burning hot

upon its tiny breast

The monk in the paper

was a self-immolator

but this little Wren

did not select sacrifice

Who in this world

could have sought to harm

a bird before sunrise?

Two laughing boys disappear

into the cemetery and my

rage is a Phoenix

even as I cry for lost sweetness,

beauty burnt to bone, the dying

of a feathered soul

~Kelle Grace Gaddis~

*

13.

Smoke Signals

Every Wednesday the incinerators

stoke up. Smoke falls to the ground

in the winter wind

curls among the martial lines

of planted evergreens

lining the driveway to the hospital.

Jim says that you can hear

the dogs in the research wing

(their larynxes removed)

huff for their lost pals.

And the one-legged vets’

cigarette contrails

dissipating in the air,

mourn their missing

limbs, now sprinkling down

like snow from the sky.

~Ann Randlette~

*

12.

Room Where a Plant Can’t Breathe

Claustrophobic. No evidence of photo-

synthesis the sunlight blocked through

conversation. Blackout words, the paint

-ings on the wall are meaningless. One,

a landscape of dull pastels. The other a

drooping couple, Dali-esque but less-

refined. A grandfather clock ticks

endless quiet not enough to mask the

silence, which is deafening.

~James Croal Jackson~

*

11.

Electrons

It is possible

for electrons like you

and me

to have a long-

lasting interaction

before the transition

to zero.

Start strong,

move fast,

conserve energy

through longer

wavelengths,

whale songs, wet

lips. Hold

until light slips

through the spaces

of our fingers:

phosphorescence.

Glow. We know

probabilities

for starting and ending

are the same.

After the initial

burst, let’s become

a more stable state

we won’t gradually

weaken.

~James Croal Jackson~

*

10.

Love Story

This is where I say boo and you take a bow

on the threshold of martyrdom you thought

I was dying

half rocked the tubes of life inserted

into every slit every hole plugged up emaciated

grey-eyed

head hung like a barbell

deaths door

you – avenger – cuckold

kept vigil over my bleeding womb

chant-chant

me back into eyeballs

back into a clit

single handedly raise me

from the dead

I awake a mute

now what to do with me

un-dead

not her / she / the woman

anymore

scared you didn’t I?

only warriors make a comeback like this

when you swallow mercury and it soaks into every cell

saturates every layer

then oozes through your pores

you become mercury

and you clutch onto me as the room floods

with water

we drift out

I worry you may catch a cold

as I burn full on into the sea

~Donna Dallas~

*

9.

Dimwitted

There’s a death in the air

floating up towards our window

of floor 37

I can smell it from the balcony

all hands on deck for it I salvage a tear

from my purse to show a little compassion

some mercy for fuck sake every death

deserves a word or two

etched onto a gravestone

I sit waiting for it to rise up

as if it will grasp my sour heart

and I may breathe no more

but nothing happens

I exit unscathed the sun is shining

and I close death’s door

your foot catches

we are full on writhing into a relapse

we drift into the same death

we miraculously escaped moments before

~Donna Dallas~

*

8.

Fanatic

I’m preaching your

Bible—yessss God

lives in my book bag.

The A-train possesses me

for forty-five minutes

each morning.

I sit captive

between gargoyles

in skirts and flat sandals.

Demons with menacing eyes

clothed in business suits

try to convert me.

They exhale hot breath

onto my breasts piercing my nipples.

I am eye level with their flies

rising right before my eyes.

I ride the train of Edom.

Any moment one of them

will adjust their penis so it

sits comfortably in Fruit of the

Looms. I sit wet and sticky

wondering the length and width.

I won’t be tainted.

I retreat into the book bag

to save my soul.

~Donna Dallas~

*

7.

Showcase Showdown

Destination vacation: Lost in the Woods

World-class poison ivy Five-stars for fear

This package includes unregulated wasp nests berries that bleed

a hiking trail to a cliff a striking view of forgotten bear carcasses

You will enjoy an uneasy feeling a quickening of rustles

in the ferns to your left The cricketing silence burbling liquid

swamp versus living thing quality entertainment swamp wins

Come relax in a well-lighted clearing at dusk the howling picks up

And the death rolls of gators you thought you were too far north to hear

With bats nightmaring above your face the wispy ghosts of mosquitoes

bellies full of ghost blood floating like omens before the premium chainsaw

rental the house decrepiting between the trees jawbone doorknocker

curtains of pelts the sudden rev of a dying engine

And that cackle alone that cobweb of a voice that amalgam of snarl and sweat

Truly the experience of a lifetime what do you bid?

~Aimee Bounds~

Haunt

There are ghosts in this place I will haunt.

Medusa and her snakes live here, too,

as does at least one Sasquatch.

I've seen skeletons with Saran Wrap wrinkled skin

and aliens who need tanks with tubes to breathe.

The wheezing woman with rag doll legs and sparrow's round body,

the mad scientist with eyeglasses stolen from Roy Orbison's grave

and feet swiped from a hippo,

the man who ate the circus fat lady whole,

and a scarecrow shaken off her cross,

they all shamble about these pallid halls.

Zombies kick in their wheelchairs,

banshees keen in their nights.

(It is always night here somewhere:

the darkened room, the lights-out mind.)

Vampires coax 4 a.m. blood they will never taste.

Their mouths filled with ash, their murmuring hearts dusty.

I have walked with shaggy Wendigo – only he knew the scent to follow.

I have sat with withered sirens – only they knew what sailors they sought.

Languages are spoken, though none that I fully own.

What is heard is not as important as what is said here.

Here, this place I now haunt.

~Michael A. Griffith~

Another Day

they find me sitting up

in my chair

on the back porch

mid-afternoon

gray sky

no visitors for weeks,

maybe more;

my head back

mouth opened

eyes pecked-out by birds,

"holy shit," a cop says,

I hear him clear as day

I can see him too,

eyes or no eyes,

I am in the sky

above the old ash tree,

seems I can fly,

or something

holds me up,

don't know what,

it is odd

like the sun

setting

in the east

red

like the blanket

the cops

throw over my face.

~Wayne F. Burke~

*

IN KANSAS, SHE SWINGS

open the car door,

tells my father,

I can’t take this

anymore.

At home my mother’s

Limoges vase. Lip &

foot trimmed in gold.

A stem held upright

in its midnight blue

belly. Wild roses.

Her hands grapple

with a rolling pin,

& she rows & rows

& again she rows

her dough out into

an ocean. She dives

into brackish lagoons.

It’s her thyroid,

my father says.

Sometimes,

it’s easier to blame

an internal organ.

~Jacalyn Shelley~

*

FATHER’S ROLODEX

I strum through his constellation

of typewriter-hammered cards.

Note the keys he pressed.

A life of strict accounting.

No time-worn tab for my sister.

He called her his “little queen.”

He loved her best, a truth that runs

through every family’s blood type.

Why does this plastic tray

filled with tiny pieces of paper,

snappable, in and out,

evoke such pain?

Sometimes when I spoke to him

the atmospherics shifted

and he would lean leeward,

glare at me,

as if I were the all-star of uglies –

the star-nosed mole,

a bloody-funnel-fringed nose,

no face.

I would look down at my hands

as if sitting alone in a hospital

waiting room, anxious

for a tender civility.

What mystified me, my sister

understood – everyone wants

to think they’re smart, so she told him

everything he wanted to hear,

a truth that sticks in my throat,

floods my lungs, leaves an imprint

pressed deep in my skin. My father

was half of me.

~Jacalyn Shelley~

*

2.

MY GRANDFATHER AT THE HUNTING CLUB 1934

a doe dangled from her hind legs on your right

a buck on your left

shotgun in your hand

you glared at the photographer

as if he’d accused you of something terrible

there’s guilt enough in everyone’s life to account for a look like that

dark suit tie loosened your left hand tucked inside

your pants pocket

are you thinking what to reply

or did the camera catch you staring into the future

your body mangled under a motorcycle

your mother placed this black and white picture

into a thin tin frame

that hung over my father’s desk

for the rest of his life

now I stare at

your face

~Jacalyn Shelley~

*

St Agnes of the Organ

Semesters spent spinning textiles,

Revolving records. The methods braced

Her hips, slip circling, twirling

A giddy foot, levitating for a while.

Letting the crackles hold her loops,

She pulls out those old recordings,

At least her formative years

Are completely catalogued.

She took her Wurlitzer on stage,

Placed the hurdy-gurdy in semiotics,

Tried to hammer on drums,

Knitting all the wild angry algorithms.

A jacquard of tones,

Transmitting each strand

Into a corded lace of loops,

The moog filed mouths of bedlam.

~Bonnie MacAllister~

Happy disconcertingly peculiar Summer from Thirteen Myna Birds!