every time I
worry
my libido’s
shot forever
I remember Ai
naked,
smooth-skinned,
mounting
Setsuko
&
kiss-licking her,
Setsuko
stroking Ai’s thigh
with the back
of her hand
long ago—
snow slides
off a leaf of bamboo,
leaf leaps up
.JPG)
the Tuesday poem
is curated by rob mclennan
I give up. I give up
asking. I give up asking for anything
less than billions of
gills sporulating revolution’s pheromone.
The trash of
civilization is who I love. Anything less than
billions of salmon returning
themselves to the forest.
All I ask are rivers, predictable
flowering seasons, storm
corridors & wet wide
will to surge the brilliance we are
omitting in the practice
of citizenry to a system who hates
99% of itself. Big black
cat of the heavens, purr this numbness
to death. My
civilization suppresses weeds as much as women
so weeds grow to the
size of the sky & rain down seeds on our
heads so pharma is free,
so loneliness undoes among monocrops
in eruptions of yellow. The
alternative is wind so strong I fear
the trees thrashing at
the edge of ability to hold on & flex
losing bits of
themselves on the roof like us losers –
colossal loss is us, is
the alternative to a pulse of salmon,
a peristalsis of wings.
Great undulation of oceans, retilt
brainwaves glitched in
place & make intelligence surge
in the stupidest places
of this situation of waves, salmon
streams & sky, by
way of orgasm & plasma & everything
unfinished, so life stays
alive I give up asking for anything
less than this kiss
the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan
wildness is fierce and audacious in the foothills. the
further up the mountain,
the more deeply the essence of the undomesticated horse is embedded. it
rolls
around inside their barrels, fills their heads with an intoxicating
current
that makes their manes curl and their tails flag. they are a perpetual
storm.
follow the streams downhill towards the east, however, and that current
collides
with large swaths of grazing cattle left to roam the free leases.
in late spring they are let loose to ruminate on the prairie grasses just beginning
to sprout. come high summer, a drive along the trunk road is like a
stroll
through a steamy bath house — cows heavy with heat meander along the ditches
and ignore the calves who frolic out into oncoming trucks.
chewing and chewing
while they wallow in pools of shade, chewing and chewing while tuning
out
the incessant buzz of black flies and mosquitoes. shallow creeks with
fragile
banks that provide their drinking water become slides of mud, filled
with sediment.
the exhausted prairie becomes cratered. a moon fractured by hundreds of
cloven
hooves carrying the weight of half-ton bovines.
Trisia Eddy Woods is a writer, artist, and wildlife photographer who lives in Edmonton / amiskwaciwâskahikan. Her writing has been published in a variety of journals, both in print and online, and the chapbook ‘Edith & Aurelia: A Romantic Tragedy in Five Acts’ was published by dancing girl press. She has had artwork exhibited both at home and internationally. Her current project explores the intersection of wild horses and solastalgia in the Alberta foothills.
the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan
she would like / her ears / to be smaller
and not hear / the music / of the city
all that concrete beat / and percussion / of engine
timpani of people / with their footsteps / and messages
if she / would mute / the brass and the brash
the con biro / con fuoco / furioso forte
formula
turn the dial / all the way / to pianissimo
(because / who believes / in complete silence?)
she could / breath / without the weight
of a metropolis / on her / chest
not / that she believes / in the Anahata
for she has been / in the heart / of the city
and found / it free / of compassion
the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan