Ines Rivera Prosdocimi: Poems

January 2011 | back-issues, poetry

Sitting in front of the pharmacy bar, he leans

his weight on the red countertop, one arm slung

over the top of his thigh, the other bumps

the stamp machine that promises to ring; tokens

he’ll use to pay the paper angels singing carols

down at him. Below the florescent light cutting

the tiled floor, the boxes within boxes, the small

thing he feels when the cotton of his hat

sinks down on his ears. He looks to the right, wanting

to see his face in the display case, alongside

the tiny porcelain figurine of a dog –

to be that small, that contained.

Brother Door

There are no hands tallying on the clock;

no train of interlocking gears pushing forth

when your palm slams hard, thrusting splinters

beneath the door to your room.

I gather pieces of glass, of mirror, imagine

your feet, the tiny silver blades in your soles, then look

through the key hole of this door and another and another,

until I can see: the pink of your mouth,

two porcelain birds still on your tongue.

Remember, when we were little, and bathing

together traced mole constellations across our backs?

Tonight, I’ll sleep at your door, rest at you feet.

Island lizards clawing the chipped white walls.

Rob Nadolski: No More

January 2011 | back-issues, poetry

No more hiding behind horsehair and wool,
thick as thieves. No more scratching obscenities into frosted
windows. No more teeth biting holes into our cheeks, chattering
away in a Morse code, damning the cold. Let us emerge from cabin
fever and pale skin. Let us absorb ultraviolet exaltation and
synthesize vitamin D.

A quick equinox, a simple solstice and we’ll
make a memory of bare foliage, colorless vistas, ice related death.
We’ll meet in a park and together burn our mittens, scorch tinsel
and garland glittering with smug holiday joy, shred furnace filters
and dance around all their flying bits.

Winter, you tried to kill me didn’t you? You
came without warning and brandished a predictable arsenal. Ah, but
your frost is no match for spring’s relentless onslaught of floral
plumage and sweet air, moist as pound cake.

No more. No more knit hats and heavy boots.
No more dead batteries and slick sidewalks. Let’s send microchips,
send satellite dishes spinning into the night. Let’s find reasons
to be lakefront, hillside, streetwise frontiersmen and
petticoat-clad pioneer women.

You are banished. Pack your things and scat.
May your exile be longer than elephant memory. Long and complete.
And while you’re away, we will be picnicking on checkered blankets,
oblivious as trees. We will be searing flesh, fish and mysterious
tubed meat on smoky grills. We’ll be pitching tents and raising
flags and launching rockets from bottles. We’ll be Japanese
gardening and beer gardening and laughing righteously.

So please, enjoy your respite. No more
breathing solids into the thin cosmos, no more zero visibility. Go
away and only come back when I’m ready for you.

Derelictions

October 2010 | back-issues, poetry

The Digital Conversion box in my head

Gets distracted by errant traffic upstairs.

Keith David: Narrator of all our lives,

pleasantly reciting all our yesterdays, for the right price.

Ken Burns all around. Ubiquitous. Educating Me.

Helping me think American.Now that the sun, having indeed set, I

no longer a true Englishman.Having learned to be a stars and stripes liberal. Now I know all about

Baseball

The civil war

our national forests

World War Two

Jazz

Abraham Lincoln

Louis Armstrong

The faces of critics and experts. Their wiseness.

Stanley Crouch’s football head.

The nasal whine of Gary Giddins: (His voice which reminds me of a kid I punched for no reason whatsoever in school one day, because the timbre of his enunciation just irritated me)

Thank you all!I now own the boxed set. The book. The soundtrack. It’s like I know Hank Gates and Simon Schama. Now I can say, sincerely, at cocktail parties, with a straight face, that the two greatest betrayals of the Twentieth Century were The Pact of Steel and Dylan at Newport. Now can we all hold hands

Shake our bling and sing

“This Land is Your Land!!”

6 a.m.- 9a.m.

October 2010 | back-issues, poetry

The snow may be 9 1/2″ deep, but

I’m a resourceful He-Manly man, man.

Up at 5 a.m.

Layering layers upon layers.

I stagger around, puffy, prepared.

Stagger and sass, sass some more,

dawn dreaming in the inky dark.

As the sun slowly rises, grunting

like some 47-year-old ex-NFL quarterback,

I am the magnificent soloist maestro,

wielding my shovel heroically,

I dig a moat around my mansion,

clear the way for my wife and her wee dark-green Honda.

Staggering back inside, I take off some of my layers,

wake the kid, kiss the wife goodbye,

bulk up our bellies with oatmeal,

dress him in layers, vaseline his tiny gob and cheeks.

I relayer myself, and then we go for the bus.

Two grand staggerers on an epic intrepid Dr. Zhivago walk,

bobbing and weaving through dirty gray snowbanks,

which have fresh crunchy snow layering their tops, and,

really, I wouldn’t mention the frozen dog shit,

except it’s fucking everywhere,

so that 31st is a toxic knickerbocker glory.

When the bus arrives, its engine stuttering as it vibrates against snow banks

I climb up the dirty mountain, lift the boy up and over

and nod at my fellow warrior, the bus driver.

Once home, I peel off my layers. Blow

my nose so hard it hurts my ears,

savor a cup of tea, listen

as my knee cartilage creaks. Listen

as my neighbors struggle to start their engines. Listen

to the ranting on Sports Radio. Wonder

at the warm wire I feel through the muscle in my heart.

Struggling up the stairs, turning up the heat, I

run a bath, spit out snot and get naked.

I bathe, ponder my aging balls.

Look at the clock: 9 a.m.

Now it’s under the covers and

sleep.

Definitely A Whimper

October 2010 | back-issues, poetry

I’ve seen the
greatest minds of my generation

busted for
malfeasance.

Crying glib
crocodile tears.

The codpiece of
tenure ripped aside like so much recycled paper.

Keening.

Staggering
through Bridgeport,

foul of breath
from ersatz Cuban panatellas,

singing out tthe
true stories of their lives,

fuelled by
Maker’s Mark, Dylan and a heaped tablespoonful of self-pity.

Embittered.

Half-written
memoirs, unfinished romains,

the glorious
shimmering stank of student pussy in their mustaches.

Trapped in the
afterglow of the grins of lesbian colleagues.

Their chances
now doubly improved, they smile,

bask in your
misery. A Superior predator

Grateful.

Their kids and
anti-trophy wives

like question
marks burned into forehead

by the tip of
the white-hot rapier that was once your own sense of humor

but now belongs
to your spawn.

Crying.

Yeah, cry,
motherfucker, you only went into teaching for the three free months
of summer

so you could
disappoint your parents,

show off your
scintillating repartee

and shagshagshag
little slags.

Laugh.

Gigglle when you
encounter the winners.

Their classrooms
trouble free.

Risk averted at
the very gates.

The dross
propaganda of Derrida, Beaudrillard and f-f-f-fucking Foucault,

dead without a
gutter, without a singular tear.

Hallelujah.

I’ve seen the
greatest minds of my generation purple with envy.

Preaching
against the national debt .

Haunted by the
prospect of perpetual war,

and a singular
dream where their children’s children bear prayer rugs.

Dream.

World’s end, as
the sun, a pitted, acne-infected orange,

spitting its
haliotosis accompanied by a bass-heavy worldbeat soundtrack,

weights and
measures,

whimpers-versus-bangs

God and the
devil in the final World Series.