5/25/2016 0 Comments Three poems by Flower Conroy[I had kissed] I had kissed The earth I had wiped my mouth With the back of my hand I inhaled My own rank Essence—sweat damp Sassafras & sawdust Punk & bluegrass Poured Myself a glass Of water Dirt from my lips Clouded the cylinder I bury What needs Burying The yard a catacomb Of ashes & glass This is not the poem that changes Water into ice Or ice into slush Slush into flesh This is not the poem of conversion Though if fed To fire it can perpetuate fire & its shape will be smoke In the shape of smoke What does it mean to dream of fishing Your hair out Of a well Of climbing a staircase As the bell Tower around You Burns Of God the Flower- Master Rasping Your opening The slow unwrapping Of a dangerous gift & to hear its echo You’re opening Slit rived ruptured gashed furrowed caesura gullied cleft interstice hairsbreadth Interspaced cleaved I divide I unraveled An orange Dug thumb dug Thumb- Nail into flavedo Dressed the pocked heart- Sized fruit Offering of rind & Seed Carpel Caked Under free edge Collecting The fibrous moss or Cloud or Cocoon-like Albedo & ate spilling In the fantasy gäd opens & Punishes me In all the fantasies the gäds Open & Punish me & I imagine God imagining me Being ready To punish Every disobedience So that I am a body Of distance & Obeisance When Your obedience Is complete The cold seabed island moon & I can’t keep Killing myself & not expect to die & Yesterday Belongs to ghosts & ghosts Are never Not Hungry & Once I tried To conjure a ship Wreck & my conjuring Conjured A pile of kindling & I walked out Into that moment Lightning Lashing At my back The moon hooked In its dark yard By its face Struggling To breathe This was no dream & Once I attempted To conjure a clouded Leopard & my conjuring Conjured Animal- Shadow From the corner A coyote Of ribs Slinked & I Walked out Into that moment & the fog blotted Swallowed the ground Only the gold Of its irises Searing then they Too disappeared & This was no Dream & I strove To conjure You & my Conjuring Conjured You Mastermind Muse Conjured Harelip the question Mark curlicues Of your locks as if You were haloed In ponder The quicksand Of your eyes You turned My face My face In your hand You Were Dream no Longer [If you are sitting] If you are sitting In a lit room & place your palm close To the wall Then withdraw It & bring it close again & Withdraw Your hand again Its silhouette’s outline Vacillates Between sharp & diffused Honed Becomes softened as light Diffracts inward Rays Spread Around your fingers My grief no longer Private But was it ever Mine Alone All waves Behave In this manner this is physics Not poetry The opposite of wind Sound curls beyond & Titillates your ear’s tunnel & water Displaced Splays around the hourglass Tossed into the sea Tossed into the sea The phrase Strike me No Not strike Strikes The phrase Tossed into the sea struck Me Untrue & Lovely I thought this was going To be about you [Dear Girl] But I’m not So sure Anymore Not sure Anymore who This is about & you Have been so good To me Listener Reader You the whitespace & the air Between the sheet & the eye You have been so good to me Watching me Watch you From the side This is not the passage that brings Back The dead But it may Bring The living Bring you Bring me Closer […] I meant to be rawer I mean to say this Stripped Of adornment The words Dressed As in skinned […] To say what needs To be said to the bone clean If it be Blood Let Me say Blood But never is that Never is space Only Space That wet Sound Is bay But may be a mouth Kissed By backhand Or fist As when I meant to rip Weed from foundation & my grip slipped & I popped myself Knuckles to lip & if it be heart- Sickness How can I call it Dearest reader Dearest listener By its name & not its halo One must write As if One were Already dead Meaning Without Space has no Vocabulary no Visible language My father composed The sky is up The grass is green Lots of air In between As joke As tease But I find myself too Often Contemplating that In between [The Bluer] The bluer The star The hotter The star That a name Is feared Because it is a real Power That it take possession of the water & pervade it That it be feral This is not the letter You read & re- Read Written in dead Language Words will not Deliver you The moon’s inanimate Basalt & Once I almost drowned Myself drifting Among insomniac fish Toward un- Consciousness Still dressed Going going going A word repeated I Finally Recognized As my own I was Beckoned back I was Hoisted up by shirt Collar & moist hair Words are proof ghosts exist A glass broken in the sink Indifferent universe What a strange machine Man is You fill him with bread Wine Fish & radishes & out comes sighs Laughter & dreams What about heartsickness Kanzantzakis How does one rid oneself Of the falling Upward Unrequited Lovesickness broken heart erotomania existential crisis possessiveness Obsessed limerence romancing the stone needy need It awaits hatching In your chest Until I can’t swallow Have you ever felt afar Like that Searching for Echoes In the cave Of your own breath A girl enters the forest Of suicides & cuts down The strung up Takes the rope As her own The life Of a star is one of slow transformation Bio: Flower Conroy is the author of three chapbooks: Facts About Snakes & Hearts, winner of Heavy Feather Press’ Chapbook Contest; The Awful Suicidal Swans; and Escape to Nowhere. She is the winner of Radar Poetry’s first annual Coniston Prize and the Tennessee Williams Exhibit Poetry Contest, as well as a scholarship recipient of Bread Loaf, Squaw Valley, Napa Valley and the Key West Literary Seminar writers’ conferences. Her poetry has appeared/is forthcoming in American Literary Review, Gargoyle, Jai Alia and others.
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