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

​

3/28/2021

Poetry by Tucker Lieberman

Picture
             ​emilykneeter CC



Obviously I Want Fire


I go on a long dark walk to forgive myself.
Obviously I want fire, but I have to forgive.
This is the hour. I must recite everything
from memory, but can’t. I can’t remember. The dawn
breaks. Now, here, pea soup fog. There it is,
the frog, haunched:
the crunch of insect,
little plate glass shattering,
lattice wing falling,
my breath just now becoming
a structured activity: hold, count.
This is the forgiving. Now a spot
to catch on glass, a thing to clasp, 
a photograph to hold a candle to,
a century stored in photographs.
Now I remember. Recite.

If this is the end of the world,
obviously I want to be talking to you.
If this is our world,
this is the only one in which I can talk to you.
Can I talk to the part
of your brain that is listening and isn’t mad?
Or, can I talk to the part that is mad,
if that is the only part with which you are listening?

Enough with guilt. Let feelings
be “about,” not “for” or “against.” Let emotion 
not be leashed to pull the sled of judgment.
Judgment pulls itself. Emotion will come
if it likes the sound of its own name.
“On by,” I tell the dogs, go on by
that thing at the side of the road.
We are not chasing it nor being chased by it.

I tend a flame, carry a torch 
until I realize I’m feeding 
whatever it was, and that this is about me
because it burned up the cardboard box in which I held it,
and that I was the box, and that now I am the sky.

What was it. Was it in the photograph.
Here, this is a new seed. Let me water it. Let me think.
Let me someday stop. Let it outlive me.
I wanted fire, obviously. Now I want life
or what comes at the edge of life after the long dark walk, 
beyond forgiving myself.
Let me welcome my Virgil who leads me into the fog.
I am not embarrassed.
Neither must you, Virgil, ever be embarrassed;
there is always a reason you were brought back.
​

​
Picture
Tucker Lieberman is the author of Ten Past Noon (2020), a biography of an early 20th-century New York writer. His bilingual poetry book inspired by the Epic of Gilgamesh was a finalist in the Grayson Books 2020 contest. His poems have appeared in many journals including Animal Heart, Dream Noir, Esthetic Apostle, Gingerbread House, Prometheus Dreaming, Raven Review, Sisyphus, and Snakeskin. www.tuckerlieberman.com


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.