|
|
ALL-POETRY 2008 |
|
Marc Pietrzykowski |
Desire Algebraic By Marc Pietrzykowski, May 07, 2008 First, an aunt, half-asleep after third shift, drifted across the median into a school bus. Witness: the crumpled hood of the car, the closed casket, and the consistency of this closing act with the rest of her days: no one else was injured. Weeks later, an old man, her father, farm-raised and all his life a prodigious spreader of seed, at last had enough of his body withering, shrinking in knobs and folds, so he turned into chaff and blew away. After the second funeral, the ghost of Pythagoras whispered through the pews: who, who will be the third? Two is divisible, weak and composed of lonely symmetries, ones forced together so obviously...but three, the triangular, lends an extra dimension, one that seems a source of wisdom, and nothing adds dimension to a coordinate plane like death—there must be a third, we cannot find meaning without the proper sacrifice. Of course there were no volunteers; instead, we all took hysterical care while driving, walking, noticing gratefully that the Government Building had no thirteenth floor. Instead, tonight we are mathematicians all, seers waiting for the surge of wisdom that will come when the formula is complete, when three emerges from the collapse of two and one from naught, from tziphra, sipos, tsiphron, rota, circulus, galgal, theca, null, sunya, as-sifr— from the only number, beneath which all the others go, the brilliant O, figura nihili. There’s Never a Line By Marc Pietrzykowski, May 07, 2008 In a desperate little restaurant filled with small-town lawyers and legislators, fat and rosy, where the table sags and we sag with it, where the waitress tries to keep from crying, we smile and pile our dishes for her, we brush crumbs from the table and rub our bellies happily, but not too happily, though the meal was made from blood and song. Eyes and the top of a head appear in the window of the swinging door, peep you, and disappear; you tell me we’re being watched, and I say yes, I know, we are the guts of a lamb, the paths of doves flung into the sky, the cracks splintering an oracle bone. The eyes, the waitress, the fearful men in shopworn suits, all are trying to read us: are they wealthy investors? Hired killers? Merely lost? And there is no way for us to reply: no, we live here now, we are like you, hidden chef, bringer of sustenance, small-time power-monger. There is no way because we are not like them yet, we have too many things to forget, too many new steps to learn before we find ourselves peeking out at the new faces, trying to draw strength and some future tense from the curve of an unfamiliar neck, the set of the shoulders, from the way they wipe their mouths, then recede back into the loam of somewhere else. Marc Pietrzykowski lives in Lockport, NY, and sees no reason to complain about it. He’s published poems and essays recently in Wisconsin Review, Burnside Review, Fine Madness, DIAGRAM, Alaska Quarterly Review, and others. His book of poems ...and the whole time I was quite happy is available via Zeitgeist Press. You can visit Marc at his website. i will starve myself and live out on the street and only associate with homeless and diseased and beaten people and then when my world has become a complete monstrosity i will feel better and i will get up and i will go home and i will write a novel about it and the novel will be goodBy Matthew Savoca, May 15, 2008 look at my poem look how bored i am read it your father came over to our apartment today and while you were in the bathroom he was talking to me and i slapped him in the face you came out of the bathroom and i slapped you in the face i went into the bedroom and lied down on the bed you were talking in the other room you came in and asked me why i didn’t run away i said, what for you said, because you slapped us i got up and threw the bookshelf over and the bookshelf fell down and the books fell all over the bed i walked on top of the bookshelf i jumped out the window i landed on the balcony below i lied down pretending i was dead you looked out the window and saw me you screamed you went inside i got up and walked into an apartment there were people inside i said hi and then slapped them all i walked out the front door you were standing in the hallway with your dad he was standing behind you you asked me if i was okay and then you hugged me i punched you in the stomach you bent over and then i punched your father in the face his glasses fell off i walked past the two of you and walked down the stairs the mailman was putting mail in the boxes he handed me a letter and i used it to cut his ear i walked past him out the door and i was on the street i kicked people on the street i kicked as many people as i could some people were out of my reach A Brief History By Matthew Savoca, May 15, 2008 There’s a highway There are lights The road has lines and I see them There’s lightning but no thunder There are noises We’re off the road We’re in a bay We’re in the water We’re beneath the surface We’re watching It’s 1953 The north sea floods 2000 people die Most of them Dutch We’re washed ashore. Stalin has a stroke In an all night diner Dies a few days later There’s an earthquake in Turkey 250 dead A bridge collapses in New Zealand Train in a river 150 dead Scientists begin to understand The double helix structure Dylan Thomas dies Eugene O’Neill dies Hulk Hogan is born You’re hearing the news On a color television set Nobody’s watching The volume is up Later I’m in the 9th grade I’m watching pro wrestling on TV I ask my father if it’s real He says it’s scripted I stop watching pro wrestling I start playing ice hockey I go to school for the next 7 years It’s 1998 There’s a computer in every household I’m on ours We’re asking questions to each other We’re typing them Do you prefer summer or winter? What’s your favorite pizza topping? Do you sleep with one pillow or two? Do you like to sweat? Do you have a boyfriend? Matthew Savoca has serious literature recently or forthcoming in Pequin, Paperwall, Wigleaf, and other places. He is currently working on a collaboration project of poems and illustrations called Tough! You can visit him, plus read lots of other serious literature at his blog. We have been dating so long I feel like I can tell you anythingBy Brandi Wells, May 11, 2008 Sometimes while you are sleeping I think about hitting you with a meat cleaver. I wouldn’t chop your arms off. I would just hack at you in a random fashion. I think I would be good at rape if I was a guy. I would keep it interesting. Cut slits in my victims’ arms and rape those slits. Vaginas and asses have been done to death. I saw two cats fucking in the parking lot. I ran at them with a broom and screamed “Sluts.” The animals I eat for dinner fuck also. The bacon I am eating was once one pig fucking another pig. How do mussels and clams fuck? Do they gyrate their shells against each other? Are they asexual? I could eat asexual animals. Before a rabid bear tries to eat me, does he think about what I’ve been fucking? Does he wonder if I fucked the skinny white boy who is hiding in the tent? I hate the way you flinch if I rest my hand on your leg. I am not trying to hurt your leg. What would I do to your leg? You don’t flinch if I grab your cock. After we have sex, I wipe myself on your sheets. I use the bottom part, so you won’t notice. Do you stand at the sink to rinse your dick or do you use the shower? I am dating you until I find someone I am sexually attracted to. I have never wanted anyone. Once, I wanted to put my fist inside a girl’s mouth, but it was only so she’d quit talking. I drink to feel better about how we are By Brandi Wells, May 11, 2008 I know you like banana bread, but when I make it you never tell me it is good. You only eat it, while you are checking your email and reading xkcd’s latest web comic. Last Valentine’s Day, I made you chicken and cheese in a wine reduction and you told me it was “okay.” I put the leftovers in Gladware and threw them away. I didn’t want to dump the chicken straight into the trashcan, because then I would smell cheddar every time I walked by. Cheddar reminds me that you are very thin. You stand so close to your ex-girlfriend while you are talking about grad schools. She is going to West Virginia and maybe you will too. I am not applying there, because I feel unsure about their financial aid. There was a whole summer when I bought a bottle of cheap red wine every night, the kind with the koala on front, and I drank it while I watched recorded episodes of SpongeBob. I knew I was starting to slip. Missed work and quit cleaning up when the cats vomited on the kitchen floor. But then you started coming home and we sat together on the couch and listened to indie rock. Now it’s summer again and I am sitting at home drinking a bottle of wine. I do not know if there are a certain number of wine bottles I need to drink in order for you to come home. I do not know if you notice my weight gain or that I’m not a morning person, like I used to be. I know you don’t click “play” on Winamp anymore and we don’t dance to songs by TV on the Radio. I worry that this summer will be so many bottles of wine. Brandi Wells is a student at Georgia Southern University, soon to graduate with a BA in Writing and Linguistics and a BA in English. Her work can be found in or is forthcoming in The Saint Ann's Review, Hobart, Monkeybicycle, and Wandering Army. |
