Poem of the Week selected by George Wallace:
THE BIG TOP HAS IMPLODED
What week of the lockdown is it? Must be Cabin Fever Week for New York poetry. The poems we received this week are laced with a not-quite-Brechtian carnivalesque melancholy—sticky-sweet moments of fleeting glee, hard landings, and harder hangovers.
Looks like this week's Twilight Zone is not made of blueberry and orange drops (Micah Zevin). A single bluejay has taken over 8th Street (Shane O'Hanlan). Flying Trombonistas pack their bags and stiff the elephants (Rick Mullin). Circus peanut make the tastebuds go bland (Carrie Radna).
All in all, the air is leaking out of the tent—dreams are near to collapsing in our comic strip parade (Stephanie Sears).
Still, we're talking New Yorkers, here. Did you party too hard with your pals on Zoom? Do like Tsaurah Litzky —wash your mask and color your hair.
Or else try to find an oblique charm in resignation.
If you’re
resigned to the style in which
we’ll have our meal, you’ll find me
charmed by your suffering.
(Bruce Robinson)
Poem of the Week
Bruce Robinson
Aesthete at the Table
not for a seat upon the dais
but at the common table.
- Charles Reznikoff
I don’t know that I should have needed
permission to be seated
for there were seats at the table,
the table set in its ways, and
by the way the one you’ve been seated
at all this time, so I came in and
sat down, knife and tines at the ready,
not necessarily set the way you
want it, in fact perhaps in your view
somewhat peculiarly but nevertheless
prepared in a refectory
sort of way to edge beside you
with whetted teeth, at once aware
(not that I cared) of the stumbling manner
in which you bade me welcome: a plate
and spare utensils at a table
now unsettled by the rain outdoors
and the scraps from that table; it was
your look that set my spine. If you’re
resigned to the style in which
we’ll have our meal, you’ll find me
charmed by your suffering.
***
Recent work by Bruce Robinson appears, or is forthcoming, in Seventh Quarry, Pangyrus, Résonance, The Menteur, Rougarou, Connecticut River Review, Maintenant, and Aji.
Honorable Mention
Tsaurah Litzky
In this Time of Plague
It’s a late, late spring.
Safari says thirty-five degrees,
in the park across the street,
not much green on the trees.
I learn on the web, Vittoria is dead,
been in the morgue thirty two days,
no family or friends to claim this brilliant,
noble poet. I for one will never forget her.
Watched the late night news on T.V.,
so many health care workers, police, store clerks,
custodians, bus drivers, electricians dying,
while in the white house political chicanery
kills thousands more. The devil dancing
the cha-cha-cha as he opens the door
Waking at 3 a.m., so fearful and alone,
I reach for the coconut oil on the shelf
above my bed, put my fingers between my legs.
Coumo’s voice is the voice of truth.
A few days ago he told us the corona curve
was beginning to flatten.
Yesterday he said the curve continues to
flatten, there is hope, but also a long road
ahead, I still wanted a party.
Lynn and I partied all night via Zoom.
I drank a half bottle of Sake, she half a bottle of gin.
Today I have a hangover. I don’t care.
I will wash all my masks and color my hair.
***
Tsaurah Litzky is a writer of poetry, fiction, erotica, plays, memoir and commentary. Her most recent book is Flasher: A Memoir published by Autonomedia.
Honorable Mention
Rick Mullin
Parade Dust
Titanic war paint never felt so grand
or crackled at the speed of spinning plates.
Kabuki bloodlust rattles my command
performance on Italian roller skates.
I navigate the fire like a clown.
If going to the circus is the game,
then I will hold the spotlight, center ring.
The trick will be remembering my name,
and in the lion’s cage, remembering to sing.
On closing night, the audience leaves town
delighted by the act they came to miss.
The flying Trombonistas pack their bags
and stiff the elephants. It’s come to this.
The top is smaller now. The canvas sags.
And pugilists are paid to take it down.
***
Rick Mullin s poetry has appeared in various journals and anthologies including The Dark Horse, American Arts Quarterly, The New Criterion, and Rabbit Ears: TV Poetry.
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