Wish
~Franz Wright

In the vast window of the laundromat
it’s early spring. A man bulked in winter
layers outside the storefront stops to watch
a jet’s vapor trail across the sky.
The world is far gone. Virtually all that’s left
for me to do is wait, seated inside
this spacious place with the dynamic hum
of machines doing the labor of a village
full of washers at a river. The sound
would as soon sing like plain folk doing chores
yet from the machines it echoes mechanically
for me to hear, woom woom, to hear and sift,
to reword: wish wash wish wash rinse rinse rinse—
into the pitching whir then whine, a lot like
a jet plane taking off, of the spin cycle—
making the clumsy metal gizmo quake
like a cold wet kitten.
				In the window
I sit beside, dimmed with the wind bringing
banks of clouds, up in the metal frame
a spider dangles, weaving in the joint
between the frame and ceiling. For all I know
the weft she looms describes Zeus’s desire
thrust into the sky, to turn another
nymph into this brook, into that reed.
Uncompromising witness, how inspired
to work her craft, her wish was not a death wish,
only her waiting. Because I don’t know
much about spiders, I remember Ovid’s
myth of Arachne, using my education
to pass the time, until my clothes are ready
to toss into the acrobatic dryer.

The river is time. The sky is raining minutes.
She’s almost had a year to bury him
like rain falling to bury the world away
because when he ceased to be there, where he’d been,
he was suddenly everywhere, in each unmown
blade of grass. Each unchanged drop of oil
that lit the dashboard light. His soul stretched tight
across the evening sky. It landed on
the fence at morning to sing with her spoon and cup.

He came to night again. It was still raining.
He had flowed to the ocean, still there he was
flowing beside me. I held my fingers
around his wrist feeling for his pulse. He was
a drip in the ceiling I’d put a stove pan under,
a dark spot spreading from the corner of the room
determined to go ankle deep, knee deep.

The spider spoke about my friend as from a far source.
Any hope to quell her would be pointless
a beaver would already know at the river’s width.
There was no narrow bend to dam her, the sky
a constant dark and drumming only patter
outside the laundromat. So we talked.

His last legs had battled back so many times.
I couldn’t believe he wouldn’t come out again.
The listener with the spider about his friend
could never imagine a battle I could not
stand back up from. The dead were speaking to him

and his widow told me my friend remembered
Virginia Woolf’s being asked about her morning’s
writing. She said she’d gotten them
off the porch, meaning her characters.
She had advanced her story at least that far.

That’s all he had to say. He didn’t need
to say anymore. He meant he couldn’t get them
off the porch. They were huddled out there
under the porch roof, edging themselves at the rain.

The poem is dedicated to Franz Wright, winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. 
The Hastings Room Poetry Reading Series, which I help curate, hosted Franz for his last live reading in November 2014, and I came to know him and his wife toward the end of his life that year.

Michael Todd Steffen is the recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship and an Ibbetson Street Press Poetry Award. His poems have appeared in journals including
The Boston Globe, E-Verse Radio, The Lyric, The Dark Horse, and Constellations. Of his second book, On Earth As It Is, now available from Cervena Barva Press, Joan Houlihan has noted Steffen’s intimate portraits, sense of history, surprising wit and the play of dark and light…the striking combination of the everyday and the transcendent.

Just That Damn—Bassoon!                                             

B-Bassoonios.

Blisterpeckmania mustafa come o-er me, officer, to plunge the knife fast and hard into this plank so many times. But I knew, and will tell you—as I have told all others I know to the point that I also know, yes—I know that’s why they’ll not have no to do with, no to do with me, nothing to do with me, not at all, because—I’ll sign-seal this ack anywax you want, to melt my signature over with, th’t she; didn’t love me. Didn’t want me.
Just that damn—bassoon! 

Play that big cylindrical, brick, Guatemonia! Play out for hot-damned, that damned brick! She got letters. She got letters. She got lots and lots o’ letters; see them showering down over, all over—just like some old TV a la Como—and, yes. She was even beginning to swipe out beyond her visions, to snag in some new ones to form; and, get this, m’ yes, get. This. Get this and get this; yes this; Pop big Bassoon Family Arkestra, she meant to call it. Retch! Or, mayhaps some ‘um of a son of a brass-banded sycophant said, Do this, and do it, do it, and all—and that would dig her under more deeply, but, what? Why, big officer? Here I am all just a-practice; all just a-practice, ta plunge my knife down, into this plank. My knife. Because in-because; didn’t love me. Didn’t want me.
Just that damn—bassoon! 

So; anyway. As I catch this breath, there, hey, gotcha—I ended up well, no. She it was left; and how it was, was that the spot where the long of her ‘assonio lay down encased safely i’ black every night, was morning, when—by luck I was moved to rise pre-fourayame t’ vomit—that the long where she left her instrumentinio every single day, now lay empty and I even double-checked after retching—like after retching—you know—the after-retch fog we all commonly call it, but not one can imagine what any of the other’s after-retch fog beholds back like. That cleared, aided by a wave of maybe my left, or no it was definitely my right-spreading outpalm, I beheld she was gone, and; here were are now as we are here now and even five six one word moments ago even as we’ve been here here, has, inexorably—just like her, become—a pseudo-history—for what reason it’s pseudo I won’t bo-o-o-ore you wit’ now, just; didn’t love me. Didn’t want me.
Just that damn—bassoon! 

Gone! Yes, gone!
Tossed from the theatre; can’t behave before wild-played bassoonios. Or two or three.
But when’s none, then; okay.
With his wife, whop’ bought tickets.
Okay, Jan. This night better be good I seek san’ said so; here it is.

So here came the next she, slotted all solidly, then. Great! ‘cause she’s a real plop. We clicked. No taste for bassoonery here (a memo to confirm that upon entry, please) (a day’s anticipation regarding B-Bassoonios.) and even that much of her residue, flushed way by time, yas the floors were very clean, very smooth, yes the days were ‘lso eh eh eh, there’s nothing real to bitch on no mo’, mommy, so that’s our little Sonboy, you are so good, we always, your pappy and I, knew you’d be good. And your it would be good, and the her you finally bumped into all a-fusion would be nothing if not perfectly good as well, and, as parental controllers be damned, they’re always right cause we have then ‘e have then and it we got to have them may as well turtle-up gundra-down and feelin’ all right.

All swanny?
Hoke.
Watcha’ doan’, Uncle Pete?
Meditating.
Walk on the back barnyard.

Within which how gosh how I swear up to God hung way too many pictures of her dead sailor-sons. Thuswise, Genie; the bag-chapter this history’s, every morning of this great big good marriage that long narrow floorslot where that other’s ‘ssoonio lay each and every now happily contained nothing—no, Sam, it’s fine. Let it stand—and that was good. Rearrange—the cosmos’ fat smiling slid up me her and them slid us out slid in the mud of click contentmentition, but, pseudo. There it is, Mr. Super. Here’s your three eighths open-ended—from the dark-nenunderisque o’ his Studebaker of it may have been any make any model any car any color, just make sure—to not spoil the boy! Make him do his own welding! E-e-e-oine day confused after an overnight new year there it was all sneaky on the other side and it did all click but my fear came back came; didn’t love me. Didn’t want me.

Just that damn—bassoon! 
It suddenly lay there again. O right there.
Now; brace yourself, sailors, as this seems a sign of brewing trouble, so passing well clear of this big surprise, the morning came up on over, like it does, how it does, if you just let it come without duck or dodge, it washes over, purifies and simplifies, and any bad humor good not white truck oh, yes. Run outside clutch’d dollar bill’d memory flattens, and flattens, hear the Good Humor ice cream jingle come on, mommy; until the way ahead’s perfectly smooth so after sliding from the bedroom very carefully not looking at the thing once on the other side of the doorframe some money, mommy; that awful wakend’y upp’ng sense of the world being too hard to handle down the stairs please a little money, mommy; the gravity flowed everything down to the next lower flat into the room of the morning’s expansion over deep smelling egg toast coffee buttering muffintoasts bread and frypopping bacon—filthy plate knife and spoon—the sense being that, food will waken all pores, and it was at the big food room table across from her, that we floated to the center the question, slash statement, of eh eh did you see that thing out my side of the bed this morning that’s never been there even once since the wedding hip hitch kick ‘ick ya yo whoooa—what’s that thing anyway?

Forked her way down onto the plate with a tap tap, shifting side chairwise, she said, Oh, you mean the bassoon. That what you mean? That bassoon?
Yes. That’s what I mean.

Yah. I was cleaning the attic yesterday—had to be done sometime or later ‘fore our end-up’s arrive, but so, eh, there was this probable bassoon in a big padded case. Not knowing at first what it was, I looked inside; and here there everywhere inside, curled ‘round the black barrel was this picture here, see tee hee, see—here. Reaching for it pushed out her hand slid it out laid down flat. As I did always wonder so how they make those machines spit the turnpike pay tickets out flat like that. Machines so sturdy that in rain shine hot cold dark light into th’ most blinding blizzardry, the spat of the charges-slip never fails to function—not once. Not once. Or at least not once ever I could see. Picking the picture up showed there we were me he and she her being her and me, after her first bassonionostio recital. Shaky as her performance had been, we stood for this picture, in perfect symmetry, wearing perfectly interchangeable smiles ’fore some flowers and—for Hackensack, it says, this exit, that money, no problem. Perfectly pictures sharp as knives ticket, think, I got it. And I drove off away after saying, Oh, God. Yes, I remember that. I—I’m surprised she didn’t take the bassoon with her when she left.

Ot.
Left? 
Havoonehmetra?

Yah. I—I suppose we ought to send it to her, she must have been in a hurry. 
Uh?
Y’ ‘ee’ hurried to leave, hurried, eh eh hurried up the hell up to leave awk.

Y’ know?
Cabanaman. Like that.
What? 
P-practi-chinneo.

I thought you said—said she passed. 
Oof; slap; sudden confusion; burrowed her face; thus acted fast, so what, mister cop; do not witness the suffocation of anything first hand; such sights are life-altering so ‘o s’ so so dip; uh ah that bassoon was so loved that bassoon was so loved heck ah didn’t love me. Didn’t want me.
Just that damn—bassoon! 

—here it is praises all pr’ hear what what’d I say? Why the look—thank God something got said to her while we were under, must have been said by God hisself, maybe, but; whoever, who knows, ‘s here; how can you send it to her, you said she passed quickly; snap, just like that. How can you went it, we send it, you, we, us, when the ground’s where she’s at? Was or t’will be and never, and if never, as you say; why did you say that? This big bassoon; that is what this it, isn’t it, right? I swear to God, no! I was right about it, wasn’t I? Crap, no, oh I don’t know my instruments that well. I scarcely know instruments at all. But—was it indeed a bassoon? And—why’s you say what you said? Very odd.

Look down up left then ahead, soothe, I—I don’t know. Now and then, well—please don’t be angry but I wish I could hear her play the bassoon one more time.  
Yes, her bassoon; that didn’t love me. So-so didn’t want me.
That. 

Just that hot-damned.
Bassoon! Yes indeed, it was. 
Hey, listen, she said, come around, arm around.
What? 
I am so sorry—but—tell you what; let’s knock off to the shore today. That’ll lift things.

Okay.
BlasterShout’s splinterfix; to be used sparingly; but, so; yes, thank God. What a slip, and a fall. But no wise fatal, praise God in high heaven. We went to the beach of waves down the sand set in the scorch of in rest of the day sans umbrella. Out through the mottled green foamy surf’s surface sure there were unknowns, sure, maybe grief loss fear and sadness heaving inside those waves, but; gesundheit; o the words grief that fl’ loss ‘ow out those f’ fear ‘eelings, the twis’ sadness ‘ted, ‘mpossible to thank the Lord enough that slip was gotten away with, then, at home. After she shrouded herself back the sliding glass doors gave way to the release of the loudspraying scaldyjet of her shower, yes, sneak, sneak, yes, as a shower once started must go through to the end without—interruption—quick get that bassoon take it out back behind the garage that’d do until the right time to bury comes over. Be it gone. 

Want it gone now, but, but; nothing’s by the bed where it was means hurry the shower’s half over she must have put it back hurry in the attic bu’ hur’ there was no time for that how could ‘ry ‘t it cannot be but okay hurry ‘cause the water’s shut the doors rattling in their steel tracks don’t lay a finger in there then slide or you will come up bloody, after all you’re not so special. Anybody’s finger would but bap boop so; get it wherever it is soon as possible. Destroy it and that will be the end of that. My my, that was a quick shower, dear oh, yah, well I guess maybe it was. Excuse me step aside from blocking the way to her dresser; didn’t want me didn’t love me just that—null, nothing, that out of bound address is forbidden and so must be dead swat call an ambulance there’s something in that creek back behind here. 

Swat!
Swat’
All gone big sudden fly how. Satisfying. But; then. Ko.
Honey, I got a surprise, a big one, great big one, h-hey remember back ‘n I found that bassoon?
Okay. Why?
I’ll cut right down to it. I’m taking up bassoon. Want to play it. Ain’t that great? 

Flash—vacuum, mass, airsuck’d from ‘round me; and, but—I held she said oh o the look in your eyes was so sad that day I been haunted truly haunted, y’ I been truly very haunted o’ the empty in your eyes; so had to do something, you know how it is, when you simply have to need to do something to fix something bad; something wrong; terrifyingly sad empty cold dry dead, well I have. So, officer, see? Now can you see? I have why I am out here practicing haunted, why I’m plunging this knife hard deep loud into this plank dozens or hundreds or less may times? 

It’s practice, I have been, practice, it’s haunted, truly haunted. Yup yes yah I got to do what I got to do right the first time, eh eh ah up, grip, down, slam; the vibration up the arm—means you’re alive haunted up, grip, down, slam; the vibration up the arm and again haunted must stop it up grip slam vibration can’t let bassoonery happen again, but, practice up, grip down slam haunted no no more bassoonery never again stop up grip down slam do it right, officer, I’m sure you get it, officer. Can’t not love me. Can’t not want me.

Just that damn—bassoon! 

Jim Meirose’s work has appeared in numerous venues. His novels include “Sunday Dinner with Father Dwyer”(Optional Books), “Understanding Franklin Thompson”(JEF), “Le Overgivers au Club de la Résurrection”(Mannequin Haus), and “No and Maybe – Maybe and No”(Pski’s Porch). Info: www.jimmeirose.com @jwmeirose

a bottle or two
 
my shadow has
always wanted
to kill me
 
perhaps i never
paid enough
attention to it
when i was little
 
perhaps i never
offered him the
right drugs
 
i know damn well
we knocked back
a bottle or two
 
perhaps my shadow
is a bigger asshole
than i am
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
ever coming true
 
wishing for death
does me no good
anymore
 
countless years
of no wishes ever
coming true will
break you eventually
 
open mouth
 
insert hose connected
to the tail pipe
 
i'm sure there are
sexier ways to go
 
another thing i was
never blessed with
 
at least by most eyes
-----------------------------------------------------------------
no confidence in that belief
 
i can laugh about
it now but that is
with plenty of
years between
it all
 
i'm sure my life
was supposed to
be different than
this
 
although, i have
no confidence
in that belief
 
i truly don't want
to believe that this
was supposed to
be my destiny
 
sadly, i'm not
that cynical
 
yet
 
a few more years
 
and the bitterness
might be the only
taste i have left
---------------------------------------------------------------------
dark amazing eyes
 
it's another set
of dark amazing
eyes
 
hello from the
sweet lips
 
i like to imagine
it's actually come
fuck me
 
but i try not to
verbalize that
dream
 
at least not yet
-------------------------------------------------------------------
even beauty can give you
 
all the shouting
shows are worries
headed for oblivion
 
your kiss tasted
like a cold
sunshine
 
even beauty can
give you a cancer
that will kill you
 
i don't envy the
woman that wants
to clean up this
mess

J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) is old enough to know better. He’s been widely published over the years, most recently at Terror House Magazine, The Beatnik Cowboy, Horror Sleaze Trash, Misfit Magazine and Mad Swirl. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)

MET IJEOMA

This is Ije,
She's the radiance in the solar,
She came tonight
And the stars came too,
To envy the sky basking in her light
She was the moon

Do you know? 
The black domes in her eyes
Told me I was due for a hajj 
Obiaruku, Abraka— 
Makkah, Madinah, to where, the call, I'll heed
Days have a way of crawling into our nights
Like a drunkard I got high on her excess
Only to daydream of her 
Like spoken verses for Subh at Asr

BATTLE

Life is only life 
If it is filled with wars
And battles always within these wars.

The battle to get your children to do what they’re told.
The battle to overcome your lovesickness and your grief.
The battle of the hungry bird and the wily worm. 
The battle of the space between the unnecessary noise and the uncomfortable quiet.

Life is only life
If every moment is a struggle inside your mind
Between sanity and letting go. 

The battle to wake up every morning
With the fist doubling in your stomach
And the hammers pounding out S.O.S. on both temples –
A battle daily fought and daily won until the morning you lose the war

Like we all must, in some way, lose the war
In the final place where the space narrows,
The lights dim, the music fades to distant silence.

 
FREEDOM OF SPEECH

I have found my freedom of speech
In slipping through the bars
Of the constriction of my words
To tell you plainly that I see God
In a bubble that floats in a dish
Full of rain that sits unnoticed
On the backsteps of a house
Where nobody any longer lives
And at the same time tell you that
I know for certain there is no God.
 
HOLY TIME

That time of night
that’s also morning
when the time moves so slowly
and you ponder all of it.
You feel all of the ground overturning.
A religious time.
Contemplative time.
Holy time.

She calls you
and she’s just had surgery
and she was afraid 
lying there waiting for the knife
that she would never wake up,
never see you again;
never tell you that even when she hated you,
she still loved you.
She calls you in the depth
of the night that is morning.
Holy time.
Halfway between the death and birth
of the sun.

The words come to you
and they feel like
they belong to someone else;
that you are just a transcriber,
a monk with his quill and parchment
squinting in the candlelight
but you are more than that.
The words are yours 
but they’re also not
and, years later
you tell that story
about the time she called you up
right out of the blue
and told you that she loved you
even when she hated you
and please could you tell her
that you always loved her, too?
And you did
so you tell her.

It’s only that time 
during the mass sleeping
in your part of the world,
the thickness of everything thinned,
that you can bring yourself
to tell such stories
that you usually can’t 
even bring yourself to remember.
The time when the sun is 
farthest from you
and the moon feels her power 
to push and pull you
just before her influence fades again.
A religious time.
Contemplative time.
A holy time
when something unquantifiable 
enters you
and brings words
that you didn’t know resided inside you
right out into the world
from your hands.

The holy time
when your wounds open
and it helps you convalesce.
 
HOW MANY MELANINS

We were visiting my wife’s brother Saddiq in North Carolina:
My wife, my three-year-old son Johnny, baby Sara and me.
Her brother was divorced and remarried.
His two daughters from his first wife were also staying with him that weekend.
My wife and her brother were from Pakistan although their father was born in a part of India
That is now Bangladesh. 
Saddiq’s ex-wife was a Sikh from India. 
I’m just a white American mutt.

Saddiq had two daughters and no sons
And it became obvious having a son was important to him
Because he paid more attention to my son that weekend than to his own daughters.
His older daughter was about twelve and right away she began to confide in me.
I don’t know why.
She told me about how she hated her “wicked stepmother”
And that she considered herself to be ugly.
I told her to look in the mirror and see how much she looked like her mother,
Which was true.
“Is your mother ugly, Jia? 
No, she’s beautiful. So are you.”
I also told her that being a stepmother was not an easy thing
And to be patient and understanding of that.

Later on she declared, 
“I know why you like Sara more than you like Johnny.”
She had made that assumption because, 
Seeing how much attention my son was getting from Saddiq,
I was giving my daughter more attention than usual so she wouldn’t be upset.
“Well, first of all, Jia, that’s not true
But I would like to know why you think I like Sara more.”
“It’s because Sara’s skin is lighter and Johnny’s is darker.”
With that, my son walks up to us.
He had heard what Jia said about skin color and merely responded, “I’m brown!”
As a declarative statement of fact – without any emotion whatsoever.
Then he went back to watching SpongeBob. 

“Jia, there is something in the skin called melanin
And it helps to decide how dark your skin is. 
Johnny has more melanin in his skin than Sara. That’s all.
How silly would it be to like one person more than another based on something like that?
They have no say in how much or little melanin they have.
They have no control over it. 
I’m too smart to like or dislike someone over something so trivial.
I’m sure you are, too.
I would never even think to like or judge someone over it.”
“Well, how many more melanins does Johnny have?” she asked.
“I don’t know, dear. I don’t know how much more melanin he has.
It’s not really important. 
It’s who he is in his heart that’s important. 
That and how he treats himself and others.”

She said she understood
And I really think she did.
I’m long since divorced and I haven’t seen Saddiq or his family in years.
Such is life.
Well, 
If you ever read this, Jia,
I hope you’re doing well
And you still understand what I told you
Because too many people never will. 
 
IODINE

We held onto one another
Until the money ran out.
I spent it on lottery tickets,
You on wine.
I spent it on lawyers and looseleaf,
You on bandages
And bottles of iodine.

We may not have money, honey,
But we got rain.

The stars blind against the sun,
Too far away to matter.
Time as thin as a razor blade,
As short as its handle.

You spent your money on worrying.
I spent my money on the horses.
You spent it on transportation 
To always the same lifeless destination
Where your sister and your mother led you
As I pitched pennies in the alley,
Trying to strike it rich with the other poets
And losers.

We may not have money, honey,
But we got rain.

We loved one another
As long as the moon allowed us,
Peeking in through the blinds
To see our naked bodies
So helplessly ensnared.
To see our naked everything.
The moon could not hide us well enough
Or illuminate us beyond our own walls.
The moon is gone now, along with the money.

I made for you clothes to wear.
You made the salve that calmed the scars
That lay long and razed along my back.
I see you in my clothes now
As I run my fingers along
My whiplash scars
Just as you used to do.

Now
My crumpled words, 
Your secret photographs,
All smoldering in an ashtray
In a room we once occupied
Together.
A room now half-occupied.
The smell is bitter
Like burning leaves with kerosene.

We may not have money, honey
But we got rain.
I close my eyes and listen to it
Outside, just beyond my thoughts
That concentrate on your heart
That is stained red
With iodine.
There is nothing to do, the money is gone.

You close your eyes in your Home for the Indigent
And I sit in mine,
Both huddled alone,
Both waiting for the things 
That never arrive.
Knowing they will never arrive
But hoping.
I close my eyes,
You close yours,
Listening to the same rain
That falls as red
And bright
As iodine.

We ain’t got money, honey…

John Tustin’s poetry has appeared in many disparate literary journals since 2009. fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry contains links to his published poetry online.

Instructions For Living Like Tofu

be like whoever’s nearby
softening in a saute pan 
coagulating soy milk
dying to be buffaloed

jerked    spiced    riced
burrito bowled    baked
into chocolate cream pie

ubiquitousness is nothing

terrible since marinades
drown your pores with tang
plump you like tiny teriyaki
pillows of misshapen mush

cherished only by sleepers

like you who surrender
give up resisting the chef
with his spinning knives

reeling overhead whistling
a Sinatra song as he carves
you into uniform squares
till “My Way’s” last big note 


 
Birthday Candle Remix                                      

~for Jillian


I carried you
into the world
my flame lily
Bore your candle
deep in my dim
delivered you tender 
fire bouquet in bleak
November dusk 

That gift was all I had

You carried me
into the world
my flame lily
Spiced my fading
like a saffron suncatcher  
curled about my empty
trellis climbing in bright
November dusk 

That gift was all you had

We carry us
in this world
my flame lily
We carpet cold winds
scarlet the gray velvet
bloom as we must  
resplendent in bold
November dusk   

Our nothings left light everything



My Classroom Needs a Baggage Claim  

You scurry to check-in
stack luggage 
between us 
tall leathery walls,
cumbersome trunks,
questions bulging 
out the sides. 

We strap down our pasts with bungees 
so nothing delicate unfolds.  

We hand over our devices,
but what can airport x-rays see?
		
Do 		you 		know 		me? 


Because I don’t    

know you yet. 

Give me your heaviest
bag, the one that cost 
extra, wrenched your back
as you bore it 
through dark tunnels
to reach the gate. 
 
There’s just us now, 
dying to go faraway 
places together 
find space to rest

our heads in flight.



Portrait of My Son as Kanye’s Vision

he lets Marvin, Ray, & Otis
spin gold under his stylus

alchemy’s his power &
samples rise like prayers

artist wearing canvas
lyrics sing our scene

so many lionize him
mama’s still his queen