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Editor's
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Three
Poems
by
CL Bledsoe and Michael Gushue
My
Birth as a Volcanic Island Off The Coast Of Iceland
I
get so mad when you say I have anger issues
because
my blind rage is a renewable resource
like
the steam that shoots out of the fissures
in
Reykjavik. Baby, let's learn to dance. Let's
learn
to pretend forgiveness isn't a made-up
word.
I brought you chocodiles and Italian soda.
I
brought you Tastycakes and donut holes
because
maybe sugar cures anger, or at least
helps
my stupid inferno burn itself out.
I
want to be done with gnawing at the back
of
my own skull. Pull me over like a good cop.
Put
your hand on my tongue and feel me smile.
I'll
never explode again. And neither will you.
Now,
let's strap ourselves into a dynamite vest
and
see what happens when we turn off the lights.
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Listen
Let's
practice how to count to infinity:
start
by standing on the saddest man's
shoulders,
because he is surely the most
wise.
Or, at very least, you might be able
to
get some fresh air above the din of complaining
and
denial. Next, look through a telescope’s
wrong
end and have the saddest man
walk
halfway to the horizon.
Count
down from thirty-seven
or
however old you happen to be
until
the loss of protective reflexes
begins
in the soles of your feet
and
a medically induced coma
hovers
over you like an angel
made
of bobby pins and bits of colored glass.
Heaven
has a middle name, and it is
Agnes.
Once you are unconscious, dreamless,
unaware
that you are unaware,
your
body nothing but a sack,
you’ve
reached infinity, a kind
of
battery. Feel Agnes' breath on your ear,
saying
nothing. This is what the saddest
man
has been trying to tell you.
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You
Deserve Better
The
queen's not hiring any new fools--not even
to
polish her crown. So I've got on these tights
for
nothing. Tell me why I was born to see
the
universe in a swirl of hair, time clogging
up
the drain. Something smells like cinnamon
and
I can't seem to set it ablaze. I'm drowning
in
love. Please don't touch me. Please don't stop
touching
me. I hate everything about you
that
could ever pity me for hating everything
about
this. The best views are the ones
That
make you the most dizzy. You, for example,
when
I was watching you sleep. You weren't
the
stars. You were the empty space the stars
wanted
to fill.
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