Anti-Heroin Chic
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Music
  • Art
  • Comedy
  • About Our Contributors
  • Masthead
  • Issues
  • About our contributors - 2019
  • About Our Contributors - 2020
  • About Our Contributors - 2021
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Music
  • Art
  • Comedy
  • About Our Contributors
  • Masthead
  • Issues
  • About our contributors - 2019
  • About Our Contributors - 2020
  • About Our Contributors - 2021
Search by typing & pressing enter

YOUR CART

​

12/3/2022

Poetry By Toby Grossman

Picture
        Judith Jackson CC



Amarok

We drink sweat
-licked beers, three
of us. The boy with an axe
for a father, the girl that grew
into a deadly nightshade,
and the child-woman
with twig-pricked lips.
The rehab has a strict
substance abuse rule,
but for a brief
slice of fresh fruit,
we are alive.

Mouths shaped around
arrows we sweet
tip and toss.
Targets a bit blurred
by the alcohol
but our aim still practiced
from a lifetime
of denial.

My tongue gold
pierced and silent,
teeth-ivory fashioned
into armor.
Perhaps power
is a matter of how much
one doesn’t have to say
to be known.

Sometimes I forget
how calloused
irony-hewn hands
can be and I rip off
my skin hoping someone will
caress the lantern-bone.
I’ve broken most of my ribs that way.

The axe that is the boy’s
father wielded in the shadow
of his palm like a cool
weapon.
The poison in the girl’s
flower a velvet blue
-blood.

The twigs
of the child-woman’s
mouth sprouted
glass leaves.

After the short reprieve
from pounded iron,
we are once again,
sculptures.
Like this, empty
bottles, we retreat
into our lead pasts.
And the wolves,
they welcome us back,
gladly.


​

Toby Grossman is a poet exploring the inherent paradoxes in our absurd existence. She wrestles with scale differences between the smallness of our blue dot home and the largeness of human grief. She often writes through the lens of her experiences with mental illness and alienation. Her work has recently appeared in
Kissing Dynamite and Feral Journal.


Comments are closed.

    Author

    Write something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview.

    Archives

    December 2024
    November 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    March 2023
    December 2022
    October 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.