from AT THE MUSARIUM

July 2022 | poetry

[28401 – 28500]

“What sclerotic bibliomaniac,

coincidental with his psychologist,

bussed in these upflung glossaries & down-

loaded them to the icebox?” abridges

a crapulous Nigerian who yaws

again to sidestep a hyperbolic

Swazi cannonball. (That was touch-&-go.)

What a worrier! What a temerarious

ranter! (Here he yorks in order to toughen

his sphincter.) What a miniscule klepto-

maniac! “Must they all, on a bender

of mayhem & abomination, gimp

at the bloodroot of organizational

racism, interacting only to

revitalize their blurry egos?”

[28601 – 28700]

Now, at mid-May in Trapani, plangent

stickleback, with scalene asymmetry,

sheave the seaway in free-for-all bonding

& fusiform interrelation. Was it

Polyhymnia that gelt Castrato?

Does dialog desktop shareware outrank

the monochromatic brume of all this

iconography? Was it wrongheaded

accountancy or simply numismatics

that overlie the Oslo Olympics?

Would’ve anything kept the pterodactyl

from the piglets? Would’ve it been so

allegedly ultra-exceptional

for the oligarch to misplace his Jeep?

[23601 – 23700]

One AM in the insectivorous

Maldives where busybodies dismantle

their esculent lingerie glumly

& etymologically, yet uncontested.

Ah, cohabitation. . . .  Crap! A matchlock!

Pappy, oh Pappy! A motorcycle

advertises such vulgarism &

wastage while hare-brained tom-tom outbid them,

nog upon nog, & coagulation

of  the Eucharist actuates

zodiacal, agnostic sciatica.

For colophon, the bravura, baroque

nocturne of a fledgling saleswoman:

Best to lacerate then sprint away.

[23901 – 24000]

Relight the astrolabe fey Netherlander,

for I’m conflicted.  Though I peddle my

unheroic tricycle, all godspeed

& weirdness, at evensong a bullfinch

deadens the seamless margrave with saltpeter.

Relight the handspike, for this nerve-racking

snapshot is mushy & insubstantial

as a puree of bumptious Newtonian

transcendentalism.  Mime on moony

stammerer. Relight the ovule, gullible

ventriloquist, & outflank the buttock of

coronary morbidity:  for screed

is pottle to the teetotaler, as

instrumentation is prophylactic

to the wolverine.

[33001 – 33100]

Pocked with paintwork, Lulu mighta been

moonlighting. No tomboyish shogun, but

no sadist, either, she was as left-wing

& luminescent as the Erinyes

on the freeway. She could scam a Rodin

out of a hexahedron. She mighta

been a godforsaken luddite, but her

mega-wonky weathervane, as much as

her hedonic headwind, was undepraved.

We getup to publicize the “gotcha”

lovage of salami knackers &

overplay the Maharashtra back in

Muskogee. What mighta been!  Instead we’re

goners for gimlet-eyed ophthalmology.

Peter J. Grieco

Peter J. Grieco is a retired English professor and former school bus driver. His poems are widely published in small magazines on-line and in print. His blog “At the Musarium and Other Writings” [https://pjgrieco.wordpress.com/] archives much of this work. His chapbook collection of ekphrastic verse, “The Bind Man’s Meal,” is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.

Mother’s Day Trip To The Store (A Solo)

July 2022 | poetry

Squinting through fresh

joy I can see everything

the sun sees and like a

child full of new words

I wish to name all of us

who are here under this

upended periwinkle bowl

Tow truck! Convertible!

Cell tower! Foot bridge!

Dead raccoon! Another!

The steering wheel is a

warm gift in my palm

At a cellular level I am

aware of not being alone

At a cellular level I know

two raccoons now revel

somewhere having made

the most of embodiment

I am not too busy to

love whichever song

an algorithm chooses

as the sun loves all it

must touch. Today the

pines grow tall enough

to cast dark pools where

deer will graze a safe

distance from traffic

as the sun loves them

enough to feed the grass

and we are all still here

together boat trailer

ambulance red pickup

Even at night when a

tower of weathered logs

is consumed by a slow

controlled explosion

whose amber light I

receive in open hands

the sleeping cat makes

a long spoon of her body

and drinks every drop of

the tree that once held

her favorite red birds

Lauren Endicott

Lauren Endicott is an emerging poet who is grateful for forthcoming publications in West Trade Review, Duck Head Journal, SEISMA, and others. She is also a masters student of social work training in psychotherapy. She lives in the greater Boston area with her spouse, two children, and cat. 

Cliffhanger

July 2022 | poetry

Vincent Thomas Bridge, San Pedro Harbor, CA

The green bridge is a weighty suspension

of disbelief,

its angle of ascent firing my muscles,

a forced march in country

shadowing my climb up its short suspenders.

Hands heavy on the rotund rail,

its pitted touch flashes a pier railing,

my father demonstrating baiting a hook,

the wriggling body dangling over the side.

Night pulls up its blanket

veiling the wind-stropped containers

stacked like toy blocks below

while nestled in the standing army of alien cranes

a decommissioned battleship sleeps.

The watery bay beckons.

Below a siren wails to climb the rail.

Roger Camp

Roger Camp lives in Seal Beach, CA where he tends his orchids, walks the pier, plays blues piano and spends afternoons with his pal, Harry, over drinks at Saint & 2nd. When he’s not at home, he’s traveling in the Old World. His work has appeared in Tinderbox Poetry Journal, North American Review, Gulf Coast, Southern Poetry Review and Nimrod.

Puzzle

July 2022 | poetry

Even during class, my sister

strummed chords, fingers

caressing frets or stretching

strings bleeding the blues.

Sometimes she’d pick

a country tune, wailing for lost

beers and pickup trucks,

mourning every orphan.

Now her fingers pluck

bibs and diapers

from laundry, her kids

a Greek chorus of woes

and triumphs. The guitar resonates

during birthdays

or under a beer tent.

My brother-in-law puzzles

at her frustrations. After beers

one night, he confessed

she hums in her sleep,

and taps her finger.

It’s weird, he tells me: sometimes

her hand finds a rhythm, as if

stroking our last dog’s head.

John Cullen

John Cullen graduated from SUNY Geneseo and worked in the entertainment business booking rock bands, a clown troupe, and an R-rated magician. Currently he teaches at Ferris State University and has had work published in American Journal of Poetry, The MacGuffin, Harpur Palate, North Dakota Quarterly and other journals. His chapbook, TOWN CRAZY, is available from Slipstream Press.

Birdwatcher in Kyiv

July 2022 | poetry

They know before we do,

the birds. In the yard,

feeders swing on their chains.

If you think we don’t bury

our cash in the thaw

of the dark dicey frostbite,

you’re wrong. Trust God

or no one, I urge my husband.

Do not answer the door.

I pour vodka down his throat,

call through the cracks

to bring back the warblers.

Bird bird bird, where is your,

when will it, why why why.

What jumps faster

than blood from a vein?

If you think we don’t practice

the dash to the bunker,

you’re wrong. We’ve run out

of drugs and honey,

but we cannot run far,

railcars packed with

no more time. Before

the siren glass shatter,

we walked fine,

and the mistle thrush

spilled operettas

over the sunflowers.

The neighbors are hiding

their children in attics.

The absence of silvery

wings. Do it now,

begs my husband, break

the thermometer, inject me

with mercury, hollow

my bones before lark

and nightingale swallow

each other’s songs.

Jenny Hubbard

A former high-school English teacher, Jenny Hubbard writes full-time in her hometown of Salisbury, NC. Her work has been published over the years in various journals, including Hunger Mountain, Crab Orchard Review, Tar River Poetry, Nine Mile, Maryland Literary Review, and The Southern Poetry Anthology. Both of Jenny’s novels, And We Stay and Paper Covers Rock, have earned major awards from the American Library Association. Represented by Jonathan Lyons of Curtis Brown, Ltd., Jenny is currently under contract with Penguin Random House.