Featured Poet: Rachel Burns

a singular warning
 

I.
 
now with childish shivering
all that i know. becoming
a vessel to pass. my
handwriting's gone to
shit, like You prophesized.
& im fantastically tired
from current depletions. being
this happy in counterpart
brings an overcoming
sadness i cannot place of
produce into sustainable energy
what do you do?
with your morning?
 


II.
 
on having a baby
         your house will seem
         like a cemetery after.
it already is one
with mindless response, depth
marvels at the spectrum, lay
in finite arms for eternity,
comfortable & deaf
slowly decomposing
the capacity of mythology.
 


III.
 
last night i dreamt of shopping
carts & drowing surrounded by
scented candles, stripped candy
& decency.
i woke up at 11:49 a.m.
weighed 109 pounds
it was very cold outside
& october.
 


IV.

factual events
are bleak while being
individually
un-ordinary, various
levels of spectacular
pathetic.
-i have started biting my
-nails. this is
-common, but a unique
-attempt at self-nurture

         the earth scratches
         it's ear & falls
         asleep before
         2 a.m.
         regularly.
 


V.

when we fucked
last night,
my vision turned
into oceanic movements.
 


VI.

my previous fever sought
arithmetic in historic housing
it has a balcony, which it is
currently sitting on, drinking
coffee & smoking. the woman below is
on the phone, "the topic is
addiction, that's right up my
alley"
the weather is mist
rain & smooth light in
direct irony with
reds & yellows
if i wasn't so indecisive
i wouldn't be so passionate
 


VII.

i've got another fever
with similar
reds & oranges
tinted with i
want to travel in
silence. periodically
checking my reflexes & heart rate
the ash tray is full
& it's very silent
now, mostly
brown & damp
i ask for a diagnosis to
carry before
apologizing repeatedly.
apologize.
apologize.
apologize.
 


VIII.

my Fever has become a
contagion. spilling

over dishes & single
spoons. where have the insects
gone? where has the temperature &
conclusiveness & remedy, scholars
cleanliness, methylphenidate,
thirst text glass, pine trees, recklessness
morgue, anxiety, wonder, sex,
cheese, queen sheets, subtleness, curiosity,
thread & cardiovascular endurance & trinkets gone?




Crustpunk
 

i fell obsessed with
the movement of a name
forgetting the nightly
apparitions demand for
study a grain in my side the
cyphers jump to me & me
alone, i am speaking as the
real Maria programmed to riot
in orange wings, orange chests, red
marbles, lineless rituals, M-dance the
dancers spiral down. i feel alone
at this hour. the post office is
closed & you lost your dog, it
was 7 a.m. once, then i was here
unable to break the glass as
Maria in fear of
developmental obsession.
 
hello this is my banana
phone yellow paint fetish.
my banana phone is the cypher
regrettably so, it can be
whatever it wants to be.
i broke my knee in boston
with multiple eyes for introversion
siphon my marble pillars left behind
all the court sleeps as sleeping lovers
drawn on bodies who catch me atop
a gravel pile dissipating hieroglyphs for attention.




latent middle child
 

my brother flicks my cigarette filter
retrieves it, flicks it again, asks to be
on the front page of the paper,
is the secondary funeral location
pager friendly? will my pager get a sig?
will there be refreshments.
 
alligators go into a state
of hypnosis when you flip them
over like sharks. i'm having
nightmares about a light above
my jaw, meadows with clear fire.
 
dolphins rape fourteen people a
year, there is a support group
in florida. my brother tries to
hit a goose with a chunk of concrete
hey flipper, let me get a piece of that
when we discuss immortality it
becomes unclear which
brother i am dreaming for.




The First Fall Evening as Citizens
 

i'm sorry i take your pulse
in the morning, conversation is short
& expensive.




keep finding new animals
 

this craft held a land
mine possessed
mathematically pleasing
features as the only
onlooker sucking on
checker pieces
  i'm talking in cyphers again
  who gave me this pen, this fetish?
  this is not a cypher for
     clay women's walls
     sleepy hellos to a tiny chemist dog,
       you are well,
       chaquita.
       delight with bleached feathers.
why are you eating the game pieces to spite the patrons

                             oh rachel, your head is
                             falling into the ice again.
                             are you living as an ox?
                             & disposing of pregnancies?
this is not a cypher for all strange birds
throug saturn fog with no fear of
rock slides or heat. you held me
in your sleep last night & your breath
did not change. i hoped you were
asleep, i want to keep saturn for
myself. i held this secrecy
before departing in soft sweaters,
inquiries of knowledge, capturing
evidence with drug store cameras
social media updates. i am done
with urban cyphers, billboards. i am nothing
like the Cities in immortality
 
i was going to rob a
homeless woman for
liberal guilt taking instead
her scrolling through her
apple iphone five
she became a beggar
once more, my yellow paint
fetish did not survive the cold.
i washed my face in boston.
an immortal beggar with aesthetics but
it's not ohio or new jersey or florida, i'll

refrain from speaking a cypher
i love you without deflective body
language & these practices
ruined our status, made of necrophilia
impulses. our previous
cyphers share a twin bed in boston
with saturn on the sheets
& the sexual zeal aches, with
shoulders & the poetry like
a child maturing sexually in forced manner.




© 2013 Rachel Burns

Featured Poet: Evan Nave

Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

I was born

in a pile of mirror

shards under a ladder

on Friday

the 13th honest

and said something

isn’t right

here and is it over

yet?

        There were old

testament prophets standing

on the ladder steps

maybe screwing

in a light bulb and telling

a joke about it. My new

born ideas were fluorescent

and tasted like

yeast and sour breast

milk.

          What is the name

                                              of this

man

        child?

one of the prophets yelled

and rent his clothes with ashy

fingers. My father and my father’s

father lay their hands on

my shoulders and said Jack

the ripper

                   Richard

the lion heart

                        and a used

car salesman but it’s all

in his head nothing

written in stone or any

thing.

Postmodern cherubim

sat on the ledge

of a dumpster and

laughed about the red

mud of identity and all

the nudity involved

with childbirth.

Mean

while my shriveled

everything was cold

and my mother sensed

it and swaddled

me in a big

mac wrapper she found

on the ground. In the moment

I understood at least

conceptually convenience

and I thought it smelled

like diarrhea.

Everyone saw my sneer

face and took it

wrong.

A high priest

looking man in

strapped sandals rushed

over grabbed a mirror

shard stooped

down and sliced

off my foreskin

tossed it over

his shoulder into

the dumpster while

the cherubim flew

back to the north

pole.

          Men take

what they are

given and pretend

to like it

til they die it’s like

being a rodeo

clown get it he said.

Circumcised and destitute

there was nothing left for me

to do but wait

out the sting

so I bled and baby

babbled a lamentation

if this is how it feels

to start how bad

will it hurt

to end?

            (Alley cats dry

humped to the existential cricket

chirp silence.)

The prophets over

heard me twisted

their beards whispered

together looked at

me sad and said

wanna hear

a dirty joke?

                       There’s no rest

                                                   you know

not even

on the sabbath.

To Calvary

Sunday school shoelaces

waxed in maple syrup

against the rug burn

if it rubs it

starts the fire in

the chafe. Melt into the cream

carpet puffed up pink in the palm lines.

One bunny ear hops in circles, dead drunk through the meadow

all the way home to strangle bunny

two with its hear listen close. Thou shalt

shout ‘til the red from the cheeks ripples ‘cross

cartoon soothe giggles animated presto lips

shout the tick tock upside the hush

puppies from Payless. Moses parted the sock seam

across the crushed toe cuticle, deaths drowned there in

the salt, in the plagues pumped to the ankles

tied up tight to choke the slip from the sweat hell

and high water rain

                                      reign

                                                go away

back into the cool between ice water

coos from mother

                                 goose

and her brood of tickle fingers

up the side stitches to the tongue

                                                             tied

pockets dropping tithe quarters.

Pay the devil. Cross the trickle into no man’s land

scribbled peach with crayon and scratched

crooked with the minivan bump.

Memories of Generational Anxiety

8ish

I am playing

baseball in a maroon

t-shirt. The white elastic

collar is overstretched and

itching my neck. I think

this collar droops

because I have too big a head.

There is something wrong

with my head.

3

I am in

the pediatric wing

of a hospital holding a stuffed

horse. My father has a six-pack

of 7Up cans on his lap. He says

you had surgery on your

ears. I think I can hear

that and how did I wake up

from that crocodile pit?

4

I am crying

from a cut

on my index finger holding

my grandfather’s pearl

handled razor blade

from the Philippines. I think

World War II has ruined

everything and I am

selfish.

9

I am reading

the Methodist hymnal in

a back row pew.

A woman with a rhino

plasty looks me in the eye

and I decide that there is beauty

in the world and her nose is

not it so I should throw up.

12

A plastic figurine of Pittsburgh

Penguins great Jaromir Jagr sits

on my father’s oak desk

shelf. I had my mother buy it

for him because the J and J

sounds felt good to me and I

thought dad would like it. We

are not a hockey family.

11

I am watching

the world’s

strongest man on television

in the family room.

My mother hollers something

down from the kitchen. I holler

something back up. She comes

down the staircase and says

I shouldn’t holler at her.

I should walk up to the kitchen

and speak at a normal volume.

She walks back up

the staircase and I think what

does Thomas Jefferson have

to do with any of this?

11ish

I am standing

in the staircase.

My parents have sent me

to my room and I am giving them

the finger and mouthing

the words fuck and

you. They can’t see

me. They watch

television and I worry

about the ten

commandments.

4

I am in

the backyard my father’s

friends are building a tree

house for me and my sister.

I crack my head

on a gas-powered generator

and think there is pain

in my head where

is dad?

14

I am hugged

against my aunt’s

breast. My grandfather has forgotten

how to play our favorite card

game and has given up

trying to remember. He starts

shuffling the cards and

mutters to himself there

will be blood my aunt says

don’t worry his mind is else

where. I say where.

She says in the war our

family’s minds are always

at war it seems. I think

is it in my veins my

mind to war worry and

we used to play

cards before all this.

With Weather Like This, Who Needs Prophecy

For Mom

Your permanent smelled

like Kip’s Burger French fries

on account of the umbilical cord being filled

with coleslaw. I heard you pipsqueak

from your love handles, the pinpoint

above your left hip, and merci beaucoup

for ice chips from a basement

bleached cafeteria fridge. Water

on the tongue numbed

the labor in the arches

of your feet. Thanks

for the name.

The doctor flipped a coin

for plug or outlet, electricity in

my crotch crackled like a Christmas

tree and when George Washington landed

face up I sprouted a man and choked

out purple. People in moustaches

cracked about college football and

wrapped me in a Midwestern

onesie made of cornhusks. Organic,

gluten-free garments still diaper rash.

You rubbed gluestick on

my ass cheeks and put me

back together again. All noses

against cheeks and promises

against neck skin. Breath gripping

the base of the skull and between

the shoulders. Still from the ice

chips cold. Support circle of busy

bodies bustling around my blood,

my blood.

Even with new eyes I stacked

the hospital floor tiling in columns

of eight. Rows of eight and outlined

the constructions with spittle

from my soft spot. Order,

order. Night Court played on the hospital

TV fuzzy with tax-paid static

and generic Sprite. You ate oyster

crackers and burped up the answers

to my questions: “Are the stacks straight

enough to keep us safe or are the rows

wish-washed in ammonia and sponge

bath? Should you have called me

out as Samson in spite of all this

hair?” Never mind, Delilah, your gypsy

jewels shone pretty in the wheelchair

chrome, and we rolled out in chariots

of amniotic fluid, baptized

into this war. 

© 2012 Evan Nave