Reb Livingston
GOD GETS CLOSE
You scratch the garnets on everything
you unclasp
There's a missing set of silverware
and freezer full of untouched waffles
God gets close and you depart with only
trinkets in the night
You are the hand in the pocket of a
ghost with a waning appetite
Tomorrow I'll drop an opal down my camisole
and draw a map
OFF VERMONT
Wasn't a leaf
that didn't
smack her face
on the way out
as she sped across
the green humps
There were road signs,
sharp turns, interstates,
omissions and a legacy
of mock repose
All clearly marked
so even girls could understand
This one kept her gaze
on the pretty man's chin, felt
sing-song wisps streaming
through her hair, down her spine,
Bird songs or flashbacks,
is there such a translation?
Do lovers ever love? Of course
not, too obvious better luck next time,
oh wait, there is no next time,
next in line, move along
Oh, don't worry I'm going
Didn't stop
for syrup, wheels spat out
wry pine cones, provocation,
there it was, lay down and be
flattened, thank you, that was nice
Crossing that turf was breech
without epidural
without child after ordeal
New York or Massachusetts,
the only options, she deserved nothing
more; two more locations to pretend,
for just a while, she's not tone deaf
Small thoughts produce tiny tears and hers were
specks and plenty and would not wipe
|
Mark Rooney
How the Heart Works (2000)
51"x41" mixed media on paper
see more work
by Mark Rooney |
from WANTON TEXTILES
Mangled and Broken-Toed
Mr. No Jangle, never trust an Anglo-Saxon
name and now you know and accept that you'll never know—enjoy
the immeasurable progress and remember, all holes are shame lairs and
climbing in risks never emerging. Another hole: the circumstances leading
up to waking wrapped in a drafty four-armed sweater in a champagne bar
called THE BUBBLE HUBBLE. A sweater built for two? I'll never care to
know. Salvation in obliviousness? Please Jesus. In this city where snowfall
is extraordinarily rare, I thought I saw my double, but she looked nothing
like me and soon I forgot and then I remembered if faced the other direction
eventually there would be a familiar abode that I would always know
and so begins the foot voyage. In beautiful pinching stillettos.
>>>>>>>
Hushed and Flushed
Oh Oklahoma, privy to all, frontier
to few, the runestone ruined and still I'm writing you. OK, I'm run
through and this bus station is only small talk and woe. This is what
I hear: Your slacks are wrecked, your zipper missing teeth and the patches
on your knees cover the holes but have no sway. This style challenge
among princes indicates you're neither pencil nor thumb, neither then
nor now. I know the promised hand's true purpose and lie mute in communion.
Hear what I'm saying? Coming your way with a pair of overalls. Keep
your pants on until I get there.
>>>>>>>
Dripping and Chilled
Hamdsome, left my terrible towel in
a neighborhood with 40 churches and 40 bars, home to places called STABBY
MART and TOOT AND STAB. Places where people go to be stabbed—places
that can be named—named as warnings. Some places trick, lure with
the delicious, call themselves CANDYLAND or INTERCOURSE, PA. No gem
in my core, only awful guts, see I'm real and weep, my secret sugar
and stabbing. How can you ask nothing created, nothing destroyed? Nothing
tasted and smelled disappears, only sent to the woods for death. Some
deaths take forever. Something howled, trick? A howling nothing? Let's
not venture into the woods, no comfort, so much hunger. I'm not ready
to be cooked, my new conditioner is grapefruit-scented. I'll show you
my secret, if you show me yours.
Reb Livingston is the author of Your
Ten Favorite Words (Coconut Books, forthcoming), and two chapbooks,
Pterodactyls Soar Again (Whole Coconut Chapbook Series, 2006),
and Wanton Textiles, a collaboration with Ravi Shankar (No
Tell Books, 2006). Her work has recently appeared in Best American
Poetry 2006, MiPoesias, Coconut, and The
Hat. She is the editor and publisher of No Tell Motel
and No Tell Books.
Published in Volume
8, Number 1, Winter 2007.
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Livingston: Audio Issue