ABOUT

CONTENTS

EDITORIAL

ARCHIVE

LAGNIAPPE

MAST

SUBMISSIONS

 
FOUR POEMS
by Christopher Janke

The World

A sparrow
hits a car window
and becomes like a man
who paints his paintings
with his own blood --
sending a message to the
part of him that he finds
very hard to reach.
This is why the earth uses
the moon to tell the waters to rise --
and why the body needs
to be hack-sawed open.
Sometimes it's necessary
to put a jewel inside a shark.
Sharks are like monks.
And monks put tongues to the ground
and feel the pressure building. They say:
ready? one...two...THREE!
But the world never ends on three,
although three is an authentic tongue
although three is trying not to be a slave
to the impatient senses or to the
erratic conscience,
because each blinks in and out
like a narcoleptic driving a fire-truck.
I follow them
to see the smashing
and smoldering world.
The world's the lap
my head is resting on
as I flail arms and legs
as I ooze when kicked,
and am not easily replaced
without cutting and bandage-swathing,
all of which shows
that there's something underneath
that wants to get out, that needs to be held,
that's having a tough time
keeping together.



the unwrapping hour

A long black

stream, the ripping

of stitches.

In one room, my toe,

bronze-shining chrysalis,

a small, shriveling man. I'm a city.

I'm three frail ladies

come to visit me; we're lost;

it's getting dark. Crawled

from wombs.

A Thursday in June:

four young men all break

their necks at once.

Held by membranes.

To what.

The pin

is pulled -- hand from

eye from

kneecap. In the back,

a hunter curls into a larval state,

air tears a feather.

The farmer's eyes

are flickering;

the cow is gazing into them.



This Poet Is A Machine

and, more than ever,
is Chinese women, now singing,
now striking out in all directions.
I am an underbelly; there is nothing
to compare me to.
This mind is startled by grapes,
darkness, and the flowering crab.
Grateful to be pinned to myself,
like a horse to the same horse,
I ride, straddling me,
wanting nothing more than to want
not to want -- AH,
the self-stasis of a lime --
hello? Where are my galleons, my trees?
The prisoner, alone,
waits at the open door.



Stunt

All the tubas spilt on the floor,
the junk bonds
and visiting dignitaries,
the titmouse under the rug.
I'm tired of these neighbors
and their dirty talk. I sweep away
their spent exclamations.
I swivel shut my ears.
Still: weevils --
angels -- teeth.
I'm too crowded for this.
Have I been alone in here
my whole life,
was I born under this bridge --
did I look for a way
to stop the stream.
The tarantella stuck
in my foot,
the moon in my hand,
my jagged shadow
like a dubious hairpiece.