Tuesday poem #169 : Brynne Rebele-Henry : two poems

Osteoporisis:

your mouth a red balloon plague    a strange flower

Frozen baroque, we make ice our incantation dressing room powder-nosed

Slip of a fake silk dress, cardboard soles

Sore bitten legs, you are an ice rose-covered creature

Your sewn-on faux gemstones clatter against berlin

If the world was ragweed he says

Spine

Tornado, torpedo zeppelin

Its mouth the shape of the hair forsaken

On the altar where the dog’s throat went boom

His chin a sugar

Twisted maple, railroads at night

Being a blank is inconvenient

He sold his arm for cough syrup and a magnifying glass

Back broken on the splay

Brynne Rebele-Henry’s poetry, fiction, and visual art have appeared in such journals as The Volta, Revolver, Souvenir, Pine Hills Review, Open House, Powder Keg, So to Speak, Ping Pong, The Offending Adam and other magazines, and her work is forthcoming in Adroit, Denver Quarterly, and Prairie Schooner among other publications.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #168 : Michael Lithgow : Torrance thunderstorm

The storm moves overhead, a crack of lightning
cooks the night like a black piece of meat.

A humbling darkness and rain slaps at the peak
of a small plywood boathouse at midnight,

the weight of clouds banging in lowered excitement
shaking plywood walls, a wild reveal

clattering the panes in a dizzying nocturnal breach
of sound that rattles me in the dark. A flash

ignites the porcelain pieces in my spine, and I am
whorled like a silver spark in the darkened air

ungodly before my own eyes. My vision is brief
like a shriek; an unexpected sight that fills me with awe.

A cold sip of coffee and cigarette are what I need
to ground this incantation into a poem

brief and certain as a char.

Michael Lithgow's essays and poetry have appeared in academic and literary publications including the American Communication Journal, ARC, Contemporary Verse 2, The New Quarterly and The Fiddlehead. His first collection of poetry, Waking in the Tree House, was published by Cormorant Books in 2012, and shortlisted for the Quebec Writers Federation First Book Award. Work from this collection was included in the 2012 Best Canadian Poetry in English (Tightrope Books). He recently relocated from Gatineau, QC to Edmonton AB where he is an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies, in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, at Athabasca University.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #167 : Muriel Leung : Notes on After-World Matrimony

So watch me closely through the narrow

gates of after-world hell. This bone-lake

gathering algae and medley of human jowls.

*

On the state of carnival debris: when I walk

with you hand in hand and peel apart. Eager

to wed you with charred lace snagged

against brick and spew flower.

*

I saw that the sun was awry and then it was

purple and smoke. I saw the days of you

in the sick of a chewed palm thrust through drywall.

*

When I am on the surgical table waiting to be cut

then threaded, I want to remember the color of my blood. 

*

This cake means you chose me. Why we have each guest

bring flour and chardonnay—to bake and to hope.

*

I hope you will hold tarp over me while the earth

topples over. I will build you a tall house

on elastic stilts and teach us to overcome vertigo. 

*

When injury becomes extinct, this is how

we know death repeats itself. We line

our boxes with silk, make ourselves comfortable.

Fall into all kinds of disaster bliss.

Muriel Leung is from Queens, NY. Her writing can be found or is forthcoming in The Collagist, Fairy Tale Review, Ghost Proposal, Jellyfish Magazine, inter|rupture, and others. She is a recipient of a Kundiman fellowship and is a regular contributor to The Blood-Jet Writing Hour poetry podcast. She is also a poetry reader for Apogee Journal. Currently, she is an MFA candidate in creative writing at Louisiana State University. Her first book Bone Confetti is forthcoming from Noemi Press in October 2016. Please visit her at www.murielleung.com.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #166 : George Bowering : Attired

Look at her in those blue jeans, watch

her long legs walking up that gentle slope––

that’s time passing by. F.R. Scott used to do that,

I know him now, though he stood stiff, his

posture learned during a previous ka-chíng!

of centuries, back when bookshelves looked

less like boards.

                               I was recently offered a “global

coffee,” and timidly turned the offer away; wit,

I understand, is not ancient, nor does it abide with

children; wit is not convenient, it is nearly always

an unfamiliar visitor who plays with you

a second or two. You never want to wear

brown clothes, you want to stop time to

speed it up. Up that gentle slope where my Uncle

Red is taking a breather, he and his horn-rimmed

cigarette holder. Uncle Red’s dog hated my dog, but they

rimed, killer terriers who never reviewed a book.

Say a book by F.R. Scott, born in 1899, lived with

one eye, bit a cigarette holder, knew more about time

than you’ll ever know.

George Bowering's [pictured with Ivy Zhang, the girl who saved his life] most recent book of poems is The World, I Guess (2015) from New Star Books. In spring his hockey book, The Hockey Scribbler, appeared from ECW. In Fall 2016 his book about becoming a father, co-authored by Charles Demers, will be published by Arsenal Pulp. We don't have a title yet, and Charles did not go for my suggestion, George, the Book.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #165 : Claire Lacey : SCAT 3

Concussion is a disturbance in brain function caused by a direct or indirect force

to the head. It results in a variety of non-specific signs and / or symptoms (some

examples listed below) and most often does not involve loss of consciousness.

Concussion should be suspected in the presence of

any one

or more

of the following:

1.

on you it’s snowing a disturbance. Symptoms should fog and stall. Direct stroke indirect. Please release me, my darling triggers atypical presentation. I miss music like I miss myself. The curve of the earth a skull flashing, drunken ship lilts and suspected. Out of focus, e.g., unsteadiness, e.g., not tracking, e.g., shutters, e.g., pick up a glass of water and the wind outside it’s dark and the syllables unslung: I’m all alone in here, what if there’s a murderer, a man with an axe and a grin and the glass shatters, my hand forgotten its purpose.

2.

You’ve got red on you. It’s day 5 and I

can read but every sentence carries a cost.

I read anyways to stop the chatter.

If I read for 10 minutes the pain escalates.

Who is this stranger weeping in my bed? If

20 minites, unslung syllables when eye

compensation fatigues, snowy vision,

hypnothermia rolls in, fogging up the works.

Broekn, I think. Borken.

I can’t see the shape of it; is this a poem?

NOTE:

A hit to the head can sometimes be associated with a more serious brain

injury. Any of the following warrants consideration of activating emergency pro-

cedures and urgent transportation to the nearest hospital:

2.

The sea sucks

the river out with a straw,
leaving sludge slashed
with steel sky. Fog hunches

where the sun sets. Donut and ice cream

stalls shutter, last customers still licking

chops. It was a one two punch: shoulder to skull.

Deviation from baseline reveals cognitive dysfunction.

A year and half a world later,

the coast guard station illuminates

officers in yellow safety vests buzzing into radios;

four put on life preservers, climb into a rescue craft
towed by a tractor flashing blue lights.

They set off, too slow it seems, but speed

is hard to judge when riverbed stretches

over horizon. Back home in the foothills the horizon

hangs at 115.6km, give or take, but we are lower

here at the Humber, closer to the curve

of the earth. Soon they shrink

to flashing blue, still no offing in sight.

3.

“I am going to test your memory. I will read you a list of words and when I am done, repeat back as many words as you can remember, in any order.”

I think I’m having a stroke. Numbness
ice sharp spikes into my left side, skull

tectonics shaking down my spine, my

jaw my eye trembling skyscrapers no longer
straight cracked foundations. Danny’s not

here Mrs Torrance.

Blubbering snot runs

into my mouth moving

hurts I cry and want

my dog back

my mummy

anybody

please.

Heartbreak begins in the head, numbskull.

Every sentence carries a cost, and this

is my independence. You shouldn’t be alone,

the doctor said, go to emergency if there is any numbness

or tingling, but I don’t anticipate you will need to.

This is worse than numbness or

tingling, this is all the words like agony and

stabbing and motherfucking

 Call 911 (every sentence) call 911 (carries) call 911 (accost) please

but my body just lies.

5.

“I am going to repeat the same list again. Repeat back as many words as you can remember in any order, even if you said the word before.”

Helena: the blizzard triggers

staggering, sparkles like another

shot to the skull, no I’m not okay.

I hope the deer hits the car

so that everyone else survives.

This use of pronouns is forced

geometry unable to comply.

I know I have something to say,

the facial tic rolls

it into a ball beside

my tongue,

resting in my left cheek.

6.

It’s raining
It’s pouring

Sparkle is snoring
She went to bed
And bumped her head

And never got up in the morning.

7.

At least, sometimes I think that’s how it goes.

6.

On the porch, the snow that isn’t

here falls beautiful and thick in front of the evergreens.

Church bells aren’t ringing, there are no

churches. I meander like a drunkard,

pace the baseball diamond, a klutz waltz:

neuromuscular shamble of muscles not firing

and vestibular injury.

I realize I am replicant, a cyborg malfunction.

One two scuff.  “Mrs Palmer, there are things dark

and heinous
in this world.”

Practice makes perfect as I take the SCAT test again

and again (but every sentence carries a cost).

In the dark, wishing for shattered bones.

In the dark, wishing for a knock at the door.

In the dark, wishing for a doctor.

In the dark, vertigo of dead drunk punk decibels.

In the dark, deer on the road.

8.

“Do you remember that list of words I read a few times earlier? Tell me as many words from the list as you can remember in any order.”

9.

A cormorant stands black                                                    every sentence carries

sentry on a wooden piling

as the sea tucks itself in.                                                     a cost.

Claire Lacey currently lives in the UK. She holds an MA in English from the University of Calgary and a BA from York University. Her first book, Twin Tongues, won the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry. Her work has also appeared in Dandelion, The Windsor Review, and Filling Station. Claire currently blogs at ukcanuck.com

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan