Poetry

Zebra Face

petercole — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 11:33:20 -0400

i wonder if i should buy cigarettes
and if i should steal something to eat

earlier i thought about possible places
i could hang myself
in my apartment

my internet is out again

i am standing at my kitchen sink crying

i am doing the dishes

Oklahoma

petercole — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:26:40 -0400

The sallow cowboy
asks you to dance so you
put the limes down &
accept. Flat in his
arms, tracing the
baseboards, faces leering
around you with beer
bottle noses & hands
made of foam. The room
queers quickly, blending,
then spirals, & the cowboy’s
hand on your back is a knob,
a way to open you up, & out.
Blinking, you focus on
the deep lines on his face,
ravines you could walk into,
dry up in. He wears a
plaid shirt & he’s sweaty
& other men look at him
with an uptilt to their eyes
so you tilt your eyes up too.
You suddenly know
you’ll go in his mint green
Ford & let his thumbs
circle your blue-veined
nipples & as he’s
closing his eyes against
yours all you’ll think of
is the hole in the fence
outside your bedroom
window, what’s coming
through, how it’s
scratching.

Nouveau Riche

petercole — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 20:54:31 -0400

A huge box that once held
a plasma screen television

now lies, overturned by wind,
on the bone-white cement

in front of an urbane townhouse
Bloated with styrofoam,

the box will wait there for
six days until trash pickup

the trucker one booth in front of me at the flying-j

petercole — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 13:39:37 -0400

hooks a napkin
into his
shirt-collar

flips open
a laptop

&

eats dinner
with a
screen-saver
of his wife
and
son.

Some Men In My Family

petercole — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 11:17:28 -0400

My one brother was adopted
So I don’t share any of his natural qualities
And my same-mother brother he’s no good
He claims a mix up at the hospital
On account of his curly blond hair
And I’m so obnoxious

We went on a ski vacation then came home
I went directly next door to tell Brian Fronczek
All the snow in Utah is exactly the same as all the snow here
It’s the depth that makes the difference
My natural brother fetched me home
On account of our grandpa
Was dead in the basement

We used to sit down there me and each of my brothers
Tossing Nerf balls to my grandfather's good hand
But now there would be no more of that
There would be a pronounced lack
Of throwing Nerf balls to paralytics
In the basement

Our dad would bring meals down to that carpet-ceilinged room
Peel for his own dad an orange, shred kernels off the cob
Then once a handicapped mess had been made of the food
That man down there would yell his own name which was Albert
or he'd yell, "CHRIST ALMIGHTY"

I kept calling my one brother adopted
I said, you're adopted, adopted
I ran from the laundry machine to the bathroom
Yelling Adopted! and You have a hole in your heart!
Because he did. People smarter than me call it a murmur
a ventricular septale defect
I yelled, You, Adopted, have a hole in your heart
through the locked bathroom door
and he kicked that shit off its hinges

Towards the surface

petercole — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 15:36:27 -0500

Towards the surface
of the water
my mind
shouting

with greater
difficulty
moving up
from my chest

the name
still holds
this throat

the echoes
cling
inside this skull
from longing

a quick blur
a quiver

down to
black earth
not below
yet-
no voice
comes.

    I am praying
    she who owns my mind

hear my prayers

Her rising fire
spreads beneath
my skin my
tongue sticks
to my mouth

I cannot speak.

The living arrow

petercole — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 15:35:05 -0500

Her shaft moves across the blue
like a hand
a line of sight.

Uncompromising
on both sides
her arms rise
above the water.

He finds
an impossible focus
of two things at once
in that single ray
of light
the living arrow
stands at the world’s center.

The image
bears upon the silent water
apprehending it.

His eyes
alone
capable of immortalizing
the instant
of his
destruction

falling away
to an older threshold
some simple object
found him

amazed
a mere novice
between the hammers
in the cosmos
for his
indulging

in speaking her name.

Nested in his eye

petercole — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 15:33:50 -0500

Unrehearsed
her
concentration
here
is elaborate.

The sudden absence
of her nymphs
transforms her thoughts
into physical distance

all birds possess a core of fire

His dull movement arresting
the visual image
her form then
has nested in his eye.

It is the name
Artemis
the name alone
he whispers

which unleashes her wrath.

So saying
she turns him
back
for she has shame
to deal
in blows.

Diagonally
she looks up
again there is sky.

She feels the quiver

petercole — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 15:32:23 -0500

Movement in
her eyes pass
a line of seafaring birds.

She registers the contours
of his feelings the weltering
blood the entire
soundless landscape
that has claimed him
in the line
of her image.

His slightest movement
is enough
to distract her.

Damp,
she finds his lips
in knocking
against the nose
and then the chin.

Her hands caress
with her
fingertips
she feels
the quiver.

The fish stopped
in the river
strike the casual viewer
as deformed

they had wanted
simply to get out

suspended below
the surface
they were mere
passersby

Held in each hand

petercole — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 15:30:30 -0500

Her strength
traces
a sudden loss
of feeling.

Her nymphs help
her to dream more

the metaphors in her mind
leap over intermediary thoughts
too rapidly

lions who roam
in their splendor
oblivious
to any weakness.

Her familiarity
lies through touching
especially with an arrow.

For us
the difference
between the perspective
and permanence
is not a difference
in degree
but rather in kind

a different visual
history
held in each hand.