Excerpts from Lucy Tiven's chapbook manuscript, dysplasia
Poems /
Bridges
(inspired by "Steps" by Frank O’Hara)
How peculiar you are today, New York.
Like Judy Garland singing in the snow
And the stagnancy of the Seine at two o’clock
In the morning.
You are silent, New York.
In your frozen stupor and your beautiful black-ice concrete
Whose salt cracks under my feet
and smears on the pavement—
We all walk home, eventually.
I do not resent the winter.
It makes me think of cold Saturday nights at Carnegie Hall
When I was too young to understand but young enough to feel it
Dressed in stockings and pinafores and my dad’s coat
I slept with symphonies in the middle of December.
Hey, I’m laughing loudly by myself
Sitting by the East River at six in the morning
My glittering citadel
Always full, always mine.
I do not wish, I do not ache for a person
To be mine.
I live with ghosts and demi-smiles and cracks in my mirror
And the cigarette butts mangled by footsteps and rain.
The vagabonds sleep underneath the Cooper Union cantilevers
With their pitbulls and their heroin needles.
I don’t know where they’re from
And I don’t know if they remember.
How strange, how enchanting it is
To blow smoke out of my window
And laugh at the harlequins
And belong to nobody.
Three Poems
I.
The Word for sitting in a restaurant on Bond Street and it’s raining outside and
it’s June and you drink seven glasses of water because you have nothing to say.
II.
You would complain about how skinny you were but I became comforted by the
feeling of your hip bone jabbing into me. If these walls could talk they would say
we were drawn to each other because of our fascination with jagged edges and
things that don't fit.
III.
I want to lie down on the filthy concrete and feel the pulse of the earth’s crust,
watching all of your errant limbs tread this ground and forget the way home.
Anita R. Carroll is a twenty-two-year-old writer, filmmaker, scholar, and multimedia storyteller based in New York City. A graduate of New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, she is the co-founder of the Little Fox Collective and Storysmith Productions and is currently pursuing her law degree at Fordham University. Follow her on Twitter @lolitanitaa.
ONE /
NDA
Nothing is fair
since Olivia stole the hourglass ring
in the auditorium
100 years ago.
I left my car in the middle
of the world
and then
What. Driving back
the 405, AJ asked
if I knew the host’s gastric bypass
was on E! last year.
So I have to remind myself
Go really slowly, there is
more power in fern-shaped-
tallies. In giving things up gently
than shouting from the
shower window. So
I have to remind myself
Go slower. Slower
than stores, radio
than your mother
or trains. I never
go slowly enough
to wreck just 1 thing
Sorry about before
Just asking. What do you like better
pickles or The Clash? Yeah
these are useless questions
but you could see why I might
end up saying them & not
would you like to move into my apartment
when your lease ends? Or can you ask your dad
to get me an easy job at his firm? Here’s some
divorce humor. Ready?
The song sounds like it goes Let this dude
take you to school, it’s alright, alright, alright!
It takes a lot to write about actual moments.
This New Years Day, we walked dogs
for the rescue by the deli & it was great but
I spent the whole time dreading everything.
We had to give them back and even
before, we didn’t know anything certain
about their feelings, so it was always
like we had given them back
already. A lot of it’s like that here on earth.
Palm trees get in the street. It’s too dry.
They aren’t supposed to live here
but they do, and have for so long.
Every day, say this to yourself.
You have to give everything back too.
Lucy Tiven is a poet & essayist living in Los Angeles. Recently, her work has appeared on Avidly, Vice, and in Two Serious Ladies, Lazy Fascist Review, The Quietus & The Scrambler. She is a Contributing Editor at The Fanzine & writes copy & editorial at LA Mother, a feminist-flavored marketing agency in Hollywood. She also writes a column on Real Pants about animals in literary life with help from her little cat Joey. He is a scamp.
The Quest at Cadbury Lane /
“Knock it off, Arthur!” screeched the disgruntled girl, turning around quickly and glaring at the boy. She tried to pull the fake spider from her head, but its plastic legs were stuck in knots of her long, wavy brown hair. She untangled the fake arachnid, picked up a handful of pumpkin guts from the pumpkin she had just been carving and then hurled them at her brother.
There was a loud, squishy SMACK as the pumpkin guts and seeds hit Arthur in the middle of his face. He wiped himself off, pulling bits and pieces out of his messy black hair, and stared at his sister, who was laughing. “Chill out Morgan. It was just a small little plastic spider.”
“Yes . . . but you have been doing it for the past half hour. It wasn’t funny the first time you did it and it isn’t funny now,” she snapped. “You are two years older than me and I’m a hundred times more mature than you.”
“Both of you stop it right now,” shrieked their mother as she walked into the kitchen; her eyes were heavy with exhaustion. “Now both of you, help bring the jack-o-lanterns outside. Your brother is all in a rush to go trick-or-treating and the faster you set up outside, the faster we can all go.”
“But mom,” moaned Arthur, “we agreed that you would allow me and Morgan to go by ourselves this year.”
His mother looked at him with stern eyes, as if X-raying him. She sighed heavily, “Fine. I guess you two can go by yourselves. But don’t stay out too long and don’t cause any trouble.” The last bit was shouted to the two as they hurried out with the pumpkins, hastily plopping them onto the front porch, and haring off down the street.
It was a brisk autumn night as the people of Little Winthrop ambled about the streets, going door-to-door and ringing doorbells for candy. Children ran about in their various costumes—dressed up like superheroes and zombies and ghosts and vampires. Jack-o-lanterns lit up the many porches up and down the streets. Tree branches were colored red, brown, yellow and orange; the sidewalks were littered with leaves of the same color and it looked as if paint had been splattered against the concrete; the grass was dead, with a hue of crunchy orange. A faint breeze picked up and blew through Morgan’s hair as the two siblings surveyed the street, trying to choose where to start.
Finally deciding on a house, Arthur—who was dressed as a wizard—ran over toward it, leaving Morgan behind. She ran after him, shouting at him about how dare he leave her behind while brandishing her knight’s sword.
They ran door to door to door, ringing doorbells and shouting “trick-or-treat!” They saw some of their friends as they ran from house to house: Lance was dressed as vampire, Merl was dressed as doctor and Tristan was dressed as a zombie.
All of the houses were covered in lights and cobwebs and all different kinds of scary things; Halloween was a big holiday around Little Winthrop. They went all out for Halloween every year and it was usually a competition between houses to see whose house was scariest.
After a few hours of trick-or-treating with their friends, Morgan and Arthur broke off from the group to go on their own. This was when Arthur came up with an idea: “Hey, Morgan, d’you wanna go down to Cadbury Lane?”
Everyone in the neighborhood knew about Cadbury Lane: it was a small, dark hollow completely separate from the rest of Little Winthrop by a large forest and creek that had been abandoned since the siblings could remember. It was a spooky area and there were many scary stories about it. But Morgan wanted to prove she was no chicken. “Sure,” she said.
They came to a crumbling cobblestone bridge over the creek; as they crossed over the bridge, pieces of stone fell into the rapid dark waters below. They could see a rusty wrought iron fence with an arch over it. Hanging from the arch was an equally rusty sign that said “Cadbury Lane.” The gates swung loosely open back and forth, clanging against each other. Arthur pushed open the gates and they walked through; the dirt road curved and branched off in several spots, leading to the abandoned houses.
At the end of the street was an old church with a large, dead white tree in the front of it. In the middle of the hollow a stone angel surmounted a now barren fountain and had cracks up and down it, leaving its face fissured and horrifying. The sky was now a violent purple. They walked up to the church and read the rotting wooden sign: “St. Sorrows Cathedral.”
“What do you think you children are doing?” said a croaking, angry voice. The old man came out of nowhere. He limped up to them with his cane, his pale grey eyes staring at the children. They stared back at his white hair and almost see-through skin, but they were not afraid of this frail old man.
Arthur spoke up. “We were just exploring a bit,” he said.
“Don’t you children know that church is haunted?” said the old man. “The church used to be beautiful,” speaking to no one in particular. “Back in the day the bell in that tower rang with a sweet resonance and there used to be stain glass windows that would shimmer in the sunlight. Now everything is all rusted and grimy.” He looked back down at the children and said, angrily, “You children stay out of there.”
But Arthur took the old man’s warning as a challenge: “Come on Morgan, let’s go in.”
Morgan looked at the old man and then back at her brother. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. Now let’s go,” he demanded.
Morgan glanced at the eerie church, loudly gulped, and then said, “O-okay. Let’s go in.” Somewhere along the way she had lost her bravado.
The two children left the old man where he was standing as they ran into the derelict church. The doors slammed shut behind them on their own; the only light left in the building came from holes in the stained glass windows. There was a bowl of candy placed on a table at the front—just sitting there, staring at the children. Arthur went up to it. “How old do you think this candy is?”
Morgan looked at him with disgust, “I’m sure that candy is ancient. I would not touch it if I were you.”
Arthur ignored his sister and greedily took some of the old candy. He unwrapped a piece and tried it, only to spit it out moments later with a forceful “yeuch!”
“I told you not to touch it Arthur!” yelled Morgan.
“Would you calm down, jeez. I’m not dead, am I?”
“Not yet you’re not,” she said, threateningly. “Come over and look at this,” she said.
Arthur walked to the right of the pews where Morgan was standing. It was stone coffin and resting on the lid was a skeleton sculpture with a sword clutched in its hands. Morgan read the sign, “‘Effigy to a Knight’ . . . spooky.” She went over to pick out one of the antique torches off the wall, but she found she could not budge it.
She pulled with more force, but again to no avail. However, she was able to turn the torch upside down like a lever.
The square tile that Arthur was standing on went out from under his feet and he fell through the hole and onto a slide that took him all the way down to a dark maze of tunnels. Morgan quickly followed him, paying no attention to her fear. There were cobwebs all around in the tunnels, as well as large spiders that crawled around on the walls.
“EW EW EW!” shouted Morgan as she got up off the ground and kicked the huge spiders off her.
Arthur looked around the dark crypt, unsure which tunnel he should take. “What do you think this is?” he asked, full of amazement.
But Morgan was not as astonished or excited. In fact, she was rather terrified now and really just wanted to get out. “I—I don’t know. Let’s just . . . find a way out of here quickly.” She looked around but had no idea which tunnel led them out of the spider-infested maze.
There was a noise emanating from the tunnel to their right. It was soft, but it became louder with each second. It was a clanging noise—the noise of chains clanking against each other, accompanied by the shuffle of feet.
The noise grew louder and louder. Something carrying clanking chains was shuffling towards the two children, and they did not want to stick around to find out what it was.
A white dog appeared to the left of the children, barking at them and wagging its tail; it was as if the dog was calling to them. The white dog seemed less of a threat than the eerie clanking chains coming from the other direction, so the children sprinted after the dog. He led the way as though he knew the maze of tunnels inside and out.
The dog was full of energy and outran the children easily. He led them up tall underground hills and through twists and turns, and before they knew it, he had guided them out to a courtyard in the middle of the woods. A white marble coffin lay in the center of the courtyard. Crows were perched on the branches of the surrounding trees, and the sky was a deep violent purple-black color. Stars faintly twinkled above the children.
Their mother was going to kill them if they did not get back soon.
Sitting on the coffin was a silver chalice encrusted with sapphire—it glimmered in the setting sun. Arthur looked at it, the shimmer catching his eye. Morgan spoke up. “Arthur! Don’t touch that, it isn’t yours—you’re so greedy.”
Arthur ignored his sister and picked up the chalice to examine it. The sapphires were so deep and dark blue—they were beautiful, and probably worth a great deal.
The wind started to pick up: the crows fled from their branches as gusts swept up the red and yellow leaves from the ground. There was a loud banging noise that came from the coffin, as though somebody was trying to get out. Arthur fell to the ground, scared. He scrambled to his feet and ran back to his sister, who was disapprovingly nodding her head. “I told you not to touch that thing.”
“Shut up and let’s go,” he said.
“Okay, let’s go. Put it back!”
“Okay. Okay. Jeez, you don’t have to yell all the time.”
“Well apparently I do!” she snarled.
The two ran for the small swinging gate—it led out onto a path in the woods. The little dog followed them, barking. The trail was long and twisting—it opened up back at the church, behind the large white tree. The two children just wanted to get out of the little hollow as fast as they could. The wind was picking up; the tree branches of the white tree creaked and moaned. Then at once, the tree shivered to life. It bent down, and its branches wrapped around Arthur’s limbs, neck, and torso before lifting him up into the sky. His screams rent the air.
Morgan froze with fright. What could she possibly do to help her brother? But before the tree could get to her as well, she ran away.
She darted through the old iron gates and across the bridge as fast as her legs could carry her without ever looking back to see if her brother was alive. Only the dog followed after her, stopping just at the threshold of Cadbury Lane and staring after her, sadly wagging his tale.
Brendon Zatirka is a teacher of college writing and a writer for tuneage.com, a popular music blog. He is really good at eating carrot cake and cluttering his desk with coffee mugs. He has written for Potluck before.
Third Wife In Distress /
“We are going to see Pir Haji Amin at his place, deep inside the rural area of Sind, infested with dacoits,” blared Ustad Bilgrami, entering my hotel room with springy footsteps.
“We? What do you mean by 'we'? And who is this pir? I certainly don’t wish to step into a dacoits’ territory. They chop off your head before saying hi,” I protested and added, “It’s true, I respect and admire you. Thirty years ago you were not only our sports coach at the college, but also a guide, a genuine friend and a mentor. All the youngsters used to come to you to help solve their emotional problems. You helped me out in more than one situation, but that doesn’t mean that you can put me in a precarious situation.”
Ustad kept quiet for a moment, picked up the receiver and asked the catering service to send us two big glasses of lassi (a beverage made from yogurt). Ustad Bilgrami and lassi were just inseparable.
“You know who this pir is? He is your old college chum Amin. Remember how you and Amin used to fight for the position of twelfth man whenever our cricket team played a match? The whole day you and this fellow sat in the pavilion, eating high quality mangoes supplied by his landlord dad. Whenever a player took a short break from the field, you or Amin took his place on the ground, drop a catch or two and come back to resume eating mangoes. Now when I informed him that you were in the city, he forcefully invited us to have dinner with him and stay overnight at his mansion. Regarding dacoits don’t worry; there will be bodyguards with us. And you should know that I am that person who pulls people out of precarious situations, not put them in.”
“How is it that brat Amin has turned into Haji Pir?
“Yes, he had his weaknesses, but after turning forty, spirituality dawned on him. He got extremely religious, performed Haj and started spiritually guiding and healing the village folks. He has thousands of devotees; some even kiss the ground he walks on. We have to go there also because his third wife, an educated girl, twenty years younger than him, an ex-student of mine, is in distress and wants me to help her.”
It was impossible to disobey him. I packed my overnight bag, and as soon as we finished our lassi, came down to meet two hefty individuals with guns belted on their shoulders.
We were on our way to the pir’s house in his Jeep. It was already dark and the kutcha (unpaved) road in the interior of Sind was eerily lonely. I was getting scared, but Ustad had quietly leaned back on his seat and closed his eyes.
“What if the dacoits attack us?” I asked one of the guys, but he just looked quizzically at me, and then looked at his partner and both of them began to laugh heartily, bending over in their mirth.
“That’s not the answer I want?” I said.
“Babu (Babu means mister), no dacoit can ever dare to attack our pir’s car.”
“And how do they know that this is your pir’s car?”
They again started laughing, this time very loudly, accompanied by a bout of coughing.
“Stop laughing and answer my question.”
“Babu, they all recognize our pir’s cars. All the cars are black with white stripes.”
“Ha, ha, ha!” They continued their fit of mirth. It seemed that in their infancy they were exposed to vapors of laughing gas in some lab.
After about two hours we arrived at Amin’s huge mansion, surrounded by palm trees. A security guard, who had an enormous moustache on his big round face that was proportionately larger than his body, looked at us with piercing gaze, searched us and then allowed us to enter a long corridor leading to a living room. The room was one of the largest I had ever seen. The ground was covered with thick, soft Persian carpet and huge pillows were placed on all sides for the backrest. Here we were made to sit and wait for the Pir’s arrival. He came in pretty soon, with an aura of spirituality surrounding him. Rich fragrance of Rose perfume filled the air as he came nearer. He greeted Ustad cordially, then looked at me and smiled. “I still remember you, twelfth man.” Saying so, he embraced me heartily and asked me to sit beside him. We talked for a while about the foolish things we had done in college. The Pir then clapped his hands and a horde of servants came in and started putting several dishes on a cloth spread on floor, signaling that the dinner was ready..
After a rich, sumptuous dinner, we sprawled on the carpet and rested our backs on the pillows. One servant in particular kept on coming again and again and asking the Pir what can he do to please the guests? Pir Haji Amin got restless. He told him to circle around the pole in the corner till he was asked to stop. The poor guy obediently began circling the pole. Another servant brought in hookahs, placed them at the very far end of the room, lit the tobacco in the bowls. Their long pliable tubes carrying the smoke that passed through water reached us. I was wondering as to why the hookahs were placed so far away, when Amin blurted out, “We should remain as far away as possible from tobacco!”
Some wisdom!
Ustad Bilgrami had nothing to do with hookah. He went to where the ladies were and got engrossed in conversation with the third wife, probably trying to solve her problem.
Then came glasses of purple-colored milk, and I was hesitant to drink it. Unable to refuse the Pir, I took a sip from my glass. It tasted bitter-sweet. I gulped down half a glass and then it happened! I felt as if floating in space, flying here and there. Everything looked to me upside down. The last thing I saw was the inverted servant circling around the pole.
When my eyes opened, I was lying on a very comfortable bed in a room full of modern amenities, and saw Ustad leaning over me, taking my pulse.
“What happened?” I roared, trying to get up.
“Take it easy,” said Ustad. “You drank datura (a strong intoxicant popular in Indian and Pakistani villages) last night and were knocked out sooner than expected.”
“What the hell is datura?”
“It is a hallucinogen substance obtained from the leaves of a plant belonging to potato family,” he explained. “People here relish this drink.”
“Why didn’t it affect you?”
“Because I never took it. I switched my glass with the third wife’s glass which contained milk sherbet.”
“What happened to her?
”She was knocked out at the same time you were. She is now peacefully sleeping. Now take this cup of strong tea I brought for you. Soon you will be okay.”
“Ustad, this is my last adventure with you!”
After being forced to take a heavy breakfast and receive a bagful of gifts like Achkan(a long traditional shirt),a skull-cap embroidered with pieces of mirror, a shawl and other items, we were allowed to leave and ride back in the same jeep with the same gun-carrying, laughing bodyguards.
“Did you accomplish your mission, Ustad?”
“Of course! The problem was that Pir Haji Amin snores very loudly and that’s a constant irritation to his new wife. I gave her a simple solution. I told her to keep freshly cut cloves of garlic in a Ziploc sandwich bag, put it under his nose as soon as he starts snoring; and if he wakes up, hide the bag. If he snores again, repeat the process. In two or three days he should stop snoring completely.”
“Does that work?”
“Oh, yes. My grandmother used to do that to my grandfather, whose snoring made even the nocturnal creatures in the garden outside run for their lives.”
“Ustad, you are really something!”
On our way back, for no reason at all, the two bodyguards started laughing loudly. They continued laughing and now it got on my nerves. “Stop it!” I yelled. They didn’t, or they couldn’t.
“Negative plus negative makes positive,” said Ustad. “Start laughing.” Both of us began to laugh very loudly. This surprised the bodyguards. They looked stunned and remained stunned till we reached the hotel.
Rafiq Ebrahim is a freelance writer, contributing to various magazines. He has also written three novels; the last one, BEYOND THE CRUMBLING HEIGHTS, is available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Day 5 /
pirouettes
woke up and started doing pirouettes in my childhood bedroom
i want to be a ballerina
i want to be a pilgrim in the Thanksgiving play
i want the length of my legs to be long and i want my body to be the right shape
i want to be your love,
i want you to notice the forever in my eyes that has been there forever
i want you to see my childhood dance photos
i want to spin into oblivion
we will be by the water when i will tell you i have loved you quietly for months
we will be at the ballet
i will teach you how to arabesque, how to plié, how to suspend in the air
and i am low maintenance, i am only low, my beauty is unseen
and i want your accompaniment, i want your perspective
i cannot take a leap without thinking of you
i will arrive at your show wearing red lipstick and the silk dress that i can take off as easily as i put on
and i will beg you silently to love me, to hear unthinkable declarations coming out of your mouth
i will have visions of the playground love
and of the way my feet arch and twirl me around
and i will meet you anywhere you like,
i will go back in time
we can dance together in my old bedroom,
i can show you my high school, the hallways i used to dream in
and i will want to pirouette with you
i will be my old self
straight into your arms
This poem is from Amanda Dissinger's first collection of poetry, 'This is How I Will Tell You I Love You' out now via Bottlecap Press (link here: http://bottlecap-press.myshopify.com/products/dissinger). The book release party will be taking place at Brooklyn's Baby's All Right, Saturday June 6th at 1pm with poetry readings (including Potluck contributor Eric Silver) and musical performances. More info is here: http://babysallright.ticketfly.com/event/845257-amandas-book-release-party-brooklyn/
Day 4 /
state line
I was stuck behind a woman in Whole Foods today that talked loudly about her best friend running off with a 20 year old Greek jeans model
(what i’m trying to say is there are crazier things than the way i feel about you)
sometimes I am trapped in the tunnel and I want to scream your name to have a part of you with me
sometimes everyone wears your face and I come undone
sometimes I want an IV of your voice into my bloodstream
sometimes I need to know I am the only one that turns your lights on
and have I told you that Bowery is my favorite street in the city and there is an outdoor cafe that I picture us sitting at, even in the cold?
have i told you about the night i walked eight miles and learned the words to all your songs?
have i told you i have tap danced for every other lover beside you?
have I told you this love is full circle, a grand opening?
have I told you that you are all of my favorite things and that my desire for you is spelled with more letters than just six?
I know it’s not smart to show you my hand, but these are my best cards yet
goddamn the things I would do for you
goddamn this fire you set without matches
I am an undercover wreck and all I want is you
your bottom lip, tattooed flowers, your weekends
unbridled, unbound me and explosive, immensive you
This poem is from Amanda Dissinger's first collection of poetry, 'This is How I Will Tell You I Love You' out now via Bottlecap Press (link here: http://bottlecap-press.myshopify.com/products/dissinger). The book release party will be taking place at Brooklyn's Baby's All Right, Saturday June 6th at 1pm with poetry readings (including Potluck contributor Eric Silver) and musical performances. More info is here: http://babysallright.ticketfly.com/event/845257-amandas-book-release-party-brooklyn/
Day 3 /
interlude
we are rapid succession
stop making me feel bad when i wildfire
when i talk too much
you’re like choking on nothing
like seeing something that isn’t there
like stoplights like golights
you wanted a prairie, i gave you infinite oceans, infinite archipelagoes
and words you can’t say
i imagine the night that i lose you will be windy,
will be dustblown, guaranteed
and guarantee you’ll never see me in a nightgown
never know the true color my eyes turn when they look at you
i imagine the night that i lose you to the prairies,
to the snow, to Paris, to the lights, that we are ice skating
that we are talking about how we’ll feel when we finally see that rainbow
i keep imagining the night that i will lose you,i keep holding on to the things that have been promised to never be lost
i believe you rapidly, successfully
i roll under, i am anew,
i am absorbed and without poise
interlude
This poem is from Amanda Dissinger's first collection of poetry, 'This is How I Will Tell You I Love You' out now via Bottlecap Press (link here: http://bottlecap-press.myshopify.com/products/dissinger). The book release party will be taking place at Brooklyn's Baby's All Right, Saturday June 6th at 1pm with poetry readings (including Potluck contributor Eric Silver) and musical performances. More info is here: http://babysallright.ticketfly.com/event/845257-amandas-book-release-party-brooklyn/
body#0022 /
The body hangs by its porcelain neck:
pristine,
a disturbing smile
dancing motionlessly
on a lifeless face.
Only ever takes them a moment to get there.
Knowingly
it has made incisions
– precisely located –
majority of the blood drained
onto the floor below.
It loves the thought:
body’s essence congealed,
taunting them,
some sort of beautiful crimson metaphor.
(Difficult to pull off;
worth the pain.)
They design the body;
it lives it.
They can never know it;
it can’t not.
Aching to meet them,
it calls out.
Its language:
misunderstood,
unheard,
ignored.
They listen,
hear nothing.
Read charts,
miss the message.
Focusing on the micro,
ignore the macro.
Always reducing,
reducing to nothing.
It tries telling them
things they must know,
ways they cannot understand.
Speaks to them through death.
Tells them:
the important,
of what matters.
They listen,
hear nothing.
It screams.
They arrive.
“Insolent father-fucker,”
the first technician says,
teeth tightly clenched.
“No respect.
No appreciation.
Sublime artistry:
the work we undertake.”
The second technician nods;
agreement signified.
(Hardly necessary for those of one mind.)
Ponders the right words;
hopes to strengthen
their collegial bond.
“My heart despairs.
No flair.
No creativity.
Hanging oneself:
nothing less than a sign
of the decay
of a once fecund mind.”
Technician number one:
stands with arms outstretched,
longing to embrace the body
(along with whatever else decides
to accompany it
in its prognosticated fall).
Technician two:
making wild attempts,
frees the lifeless object
from its mid-air suspension;
tremors of enraged hands proving an obstacle.
The body
(its or theirs?):
drops,
beckoning arms of the first technician
happy to receive.
The technician:
lays the inanimate object down,
taking care,
refuses to let sadistic surfaces be engorged
by the body’s form.
Dead eyes:
peer up.
Trapped.
An asphyxiating gaze
envelops the technician
(which? hard to say);
hands run over
eye-shaped abysses.
Retreat mounted
against reflections within,
the technician leans down.
A solitary kiss placed on a forehead:
abandoned,
forlorn.
There’s feeling in their science.
It knows this;
thinks it does.
There’s feeling,
wrong feelings,
feelings of wrongness.
Should it be seeing this? Is it?
They think not;
it knows it is so.
Confused gestures follow;
half sentences;
remarks broken midstream.
Both technicians:
leave;
the room:
empties;
way is made for:
superior officers.
Nicholas Lawrence is a postgraduate philosophy student living in Stockholm. His original fiction has been published in Tincture Journal and his translations appear on Monday Art Project.
Two Poems /
Two-Hundred Eight
I mostly miss the smell
like mud-sunk cardboard
and broad acrylic canvas
characters / sitting
characters / tendons taut
in throbbing ankles of these
characters / house cats pawing
at waterlogged couch cushions
of front porches, foyers
and I’m amazed by you
by the steady breaking
as I crawl away from you
and the tooth-aching seizure
as I smell you and smell you
in the dead air / stuck
in the fibers of these pillows
coupled on my damp bed
no memory exists
without its sensory
c o u n t e r p a r t
so I hose down
moving boxes
and sleep soundly atop.
Hot Glued
it's kind of like tripping
over uneven pavement
or the cracks in Rea Rd.
the way we used to walk home
so busy laughing at trees
i'd forget their leaves
and fall, scraped knees
mirroring yellow grass
Your mother's lips
would right my patella
Your father's singing
would stop the red
we'd sit on the couch
‘til the moon came out
You'd call me a scaredy cat
walk me home
where i'd lay on my mattress
and dream of Your ceiling
hot glued glow-in-the-dark
Bethlehem stars
it's kind of like tripping
but i don't fall anymore
i just keep gathering speed
exponentially: stumbling
way down Rea
past Bryant Farms
clutching at stop signs
all along Mockingbird
Headford
&c.
until my soles are worn through
and You wave from your porch
as i keep tripping
and tripping
and tripping
on past
C.T. McGaha is a writer from Charlotte, NC. His work has been previously published in Gambling the Aisle, Haunted Waters' Press' From the Depths, and Crab Fat Literary Magazine. When he's not writing, he's driving down Central Avenue, blasting Outkast's "Aquemini."
Day 2 /
cross over
the breeze blew sweet, reminded me of our summer selves
the things we said in breakback august, sitting on your rooftop in the
dragdown brooklyn heat
we were always a little afraid of our fall selves
afraid of our ambitions, afraid of actually doing the things we always
dreamed about
afraid like a schoolgirl on a sunday night
talking about the things we will change come labor day,
talking about the people whose names we won’t carry around in our throats
once the leaves change
remember the time we fell asleep with the lights on?
remember when i knew your 5am?
remember when you knew how my bones felt underneath you?
remember when you finally untied your bow of inconsistence?
my winter self has always been a summer shell
i am living out of my body come December
the sweet and wayward words of july,
a hazy sugary mess of a dream
remember the pretty girlfriends, the ways we still tried?
remember the taste of your birthday cake and how we left it in the moonlight?
remember the way that you burned coffee beans every single morning just for the smell
remember the things i can’t recall?
let’s not be afraid this year, let’s do what we feel is right in our sun-ridden bones
or we could defy growing older, stay on your rooftop, dizzy with dreaming
don’t let anything drag us down this time
This poem is from Amanda Dissinger's first collection of poetry, 'This is How I Will Tell You I Love You,' out now via Bottlecap Press. The book release party will be taking place at Baby's All Right in Brooklyn, NY on Saturday June 6th at 1pm with poetry readings (including Potluck contributor Eric Silver) and musical performances. More info is available here.
Day 1 /
i am: a personal poem revisited after seven years
all those years ago
when i said i was like wildfire, i was more like a brush fire
when i said i was an artist, i was in love with the idea of art
and now
i am still
i am bare bones
i am too true
i am too fragile
i don’t exist in full form yet
i cut off all the hair you weren’t sure about that i still wanted
my body is too much
my vessels are too new
i wear 11pm on a saturday the same way i wear 8am on a monday morning
i am too Columbus
it sometimes gets so hard wearing this goddamn smile on my face
i want a steamboat
i want a green garden
i want to not trip on black ice
i want to want the things that other people want sometimes
i want to know you exist out there somewhere
and i am not Juliet
i am not a bombshell
i am not the girl you will go up to at a bar for one sole purpose
(and am i any less for wanting that sometimes?)
i am not beautiful, i am only smart
but what happens when i am only smart sometimes?
what happens when the closest thing to happiness is loneliness?
and if you wonder how i am
i look exactly the same, i am the way you left me,
i am the way you didn’t want me
if you wonder how i am,
i will tell you i am more cultured now
i will tell you i feel less, so i can get on with more
i will tell you i hardly think about you
(i am a great architect)
the last thing i’ll ask is
would you have thought i was more beautiful if you met me when i wasn’t eating?
This poem is from Amanda Dissinger's first collection of poetry, 'This is How I Will Tell You I Love You,' out now via Bottlecap Press. The book release party will be taking place at Baby's All Right in Brooklyn, NY on Saturday June 6th at 1pm with poetry readings (including Potluck contributor Eric Silver) and musical performances. More info is available here.