Four poems by Jessie Janeshek

Dear Born-Again Background

 
digitally active and hovering horny
      the owl w/ a round face                          the man dressed as a panther

 the law of the Pecos                   

                                                 wherein the bullet
          does not feel like anything

                                                                  and Tarot is showing
your love for his snow corpse

                 and Tarot is cursing                       the dark lake in Texas
wandering caped            through new wave transitions

                                  cutting a line                      black-eyed                       sailboat-soured
ill-fated cocaine.

                                            And Tarot is she                       likes her nurse name with fangs
sneaking birth control                   in the sedan with her grandpa

                                                    graffiti jeans                      dying cats hanging
her parents’ marriage annulled.

                                                                                     And Tarot is worried
                                                    her resolve explodes

but thing is even this mood                           will pass as she changes
                                 the neon-haired baby              

                                                                   from Brutus to Jason
                                 It’s the part of the tale

where power-down leaves you open                      to the guilt of the town.
                 You sit alone  

                                                    no body smell                  no dress pants
and no cigarettes.

The kidnapper’s bones                                                    drop in                        
your garage diorama.





You Said I Left Early

 
and empty. And our lives were gory. But it’s just that I didn’t
                                 need slapped at the advent
riding on top of sleep                    the sex drought               the hand

breaking the bed                                              between my legs sticky.
Pull yourself closer                         since something to move toward
the deer heart                                                                      the black spine

makes you feel undead                 more like an animal
                 repressing your stench                and your hair
w/ semi-fine china                                                             the pleasure of climbing

                the hoarse soothing over                              the same hill each day
the caterwauling intervals                            the bird diving wingless
                 witch bracelets and painkill         to save our routine.

I let the young ones                         discover ghost things
                since you’re the dark constant                     blue setting in
the smooth mane alluding                              the old woman will die

                the stitches still mending                    
like my father’s friend                    who fed the small alligator
                                threw it in the sewer.

                                                Our lives were glory
                                                                 going to the graveyard
                                                our lives were moving                     inside your chicken-skin ear.

                                                The old woman was loose then
                                                looking for everything

                                                                and this was the part
                                                where we squatted together
                                                in the illogical

                                                after painting a skull
                                                on the mouth of a cave.





We Accelerate the Dialectic

 
exorcize the upstairs                                                                     indoor alley bleachy bathrooms
                and nothing but night

then run laps around the shopping  mall
                 wash only our bangs                                    our arms won’t be silver

prêt a porter.
                                                   We want to risk                                             until we’re satisfied
                                  ignoring recordings                     the coin toss

                                                                    the throat of the crime
                                  ignoring the shorter man                            in his blue cape

                                    and licking your cock
                                    turning to three                               four five nostalgia
                                  plastic glow worms in a pocket.

The false unicorn cries                    when we tape on her horn

                                our unruly lips                      our bohemian necklines
                purring, comment on our status.



                                                 The distance of intimacy: here an impact
                                         there an impact                        here a warm skin
                                                                  and doesn’t this feel like false gesture?

                We thought you were listening                 to all of our songs
and sex was the antidote                             and sex was the moat

                                  we got across dry
                 and we strapped on our hooves
                                  to sell moonshine.





These Are the Lashes

 
the chainsaw                  the brass hearts                 the under-the-tree trash.

                                Passion is killing             reviving that blade.
                                Passion is saving            or hazing the witch.

                                I don’t know anymore                   in too-tight lingerie
                 how my hair should frame
                                 gun moll light and shadow                         a Texas tornado
                 this snowy owl chord of cocaine.


Wonder Saint are you out there
                 relaxing my sex like a vapor?

Orange lips and wet sands
Funnel my vaginal yolk.                I switch to Bettie Page

dominatrix skinning grapefruits              gaslit on the train
loving my greasy black bangs.


Then your bullet misses and you chase me all day
around and around                         the ice castles behind the shopping mall.

 Bio: Jessie Janeshek's chapbooks Spanish Donkey/Pear of Anguish and Rah-Rah Nostalgia are forthcoming from Grey Book Press and dancing girl press respectively. Her full-length collection of poems is Invisible Mink (Iris Press, 2010). An Assistant Professor of English and the Director of Writing at Bethany College, she holds a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and an M.F.A. from Emerson College. She co-edited the literary anthology Outscape: Writings on Fences and Frontiers (KWG Press, 2008). You can read more of her poetry at jessiejaneshek.net.

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