Selected Poems

AMERICAN CINEMA
Marc De Palo

BLACK DOG SONG
Lisa Jarnot

BLACK ANIMALS
Aase Berg

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ISSUE NUMBER FOUR

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ISSUE NUMBER SIX

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ISSUE NUMBER SEVEN

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ISSUE NUMBER EIGHT

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ISSUE NUMBER NINE

TOPOGRAPHICA

Twist sharply and release,
shake vigorously upside down,
store in a cool, dry place and don’t mix
the ski socks with the lights,
the Schlitz bottles with the Times.
The trick is to keep the brush lifted,
the elbows tucked. Blue pills,
white pills, green. All day
I’ve been trying to hang these curtains
but the assemblage won’t hold,
it keeps crashing behind the couch.
I remember we were all thinking
about moving to the island,
growing organic peas, working at the shrimp place
or Fanny’s Knick-Knack Shack but then the roof gave in,

Shannon’s cat died, and the amp blew out in a spew
of hostile wire. That spring, I remember everyone on the verge
of either rapture or despair,
everything meaning something
different, loaded with smarmy, bloodless innuendo
like the verb “to hoot” in Language poetry.
It was the simple life we were after,
something you could start on
with a single good shirt.
I was reading a lot of Self-Help then—Simplicity
Is Freedom so I got rid of a couple pots.
Cleanse Yourself of Negative Energy but I couldn’t stop
hating it, dealing with the dog,
the neighbor’s wood chipper going all day,

doing to the sickly maples what Kim was doing
to Josh’s heart in its baffled,
devotional clot. There was nothing hopeful
about the mail box, ditto the way she took his hands
that night by the coat rack,
the look in her eyes like ruined silk.
I remember this constant backache.
How he finally just left town.
Advances have been made in the field
of non-invasive dentistry but apparently
we haven’t forgotten how to hurt each other,
the pain fanning out like brush fire
in its hydrochloric yawps. Fuck it, says the landlord

and springs for a decent sink,
Fuck it, says Matt and up and leaves for Spain.
The lot of us walk around, bumping into things,
wondering if it’s the Void we feel
or just a nagging cough. We don’t accept checks,
try the place across the street.
Try swallowing nails. Try staying drunk for weeks,
not imagining the ex’s hand on the thigh of some
meat-and-potatoes blonde. A ringing phone,
backed-up trash, just throwing his hair in the sea.
Meanwhile a spew of faxes and take-out
hogs the airtime as usual, the megalomaniac drone
of the Pacific washing up its bottles, its razors,
its swathes of the broken-hearted’s hair.

So much remains unsaid.
Buzz saws, a voice paging Wally,
the car alarm’s idiopathic shrieks.
No wonder we’re so tired,
bruised and worn-out from smacking headlong
into a hundred impenetrable walls,
little slivers of our hearts stuck
on buildings all over town.
Losing the person you love may lead to certain
errors in judgement like wearing exclusively sequins,
acquiring seven cats,
going through with the earthquake drill
then suddenly yelling Fire. It’s the little things I’m after,
slot A lining up with B.
I love the tax forms of this world,

toaster manuals, the hierarchy of file cabinets,
I love the sound of little birds,
how they go, Tweet Tweet.
Longing in the grocery lists, in wringing out the mop.
What we need here is a system.
Can I get an Amen?

Robyn Art