THREE POEMS by GARY LUNDY
place your hand on a burning fiber.
light a cigarette. defy disease. insert his name into the broken narrative. a disorganized sentence. where the subject proclaims its status as object.
keep up with the percussive rhythm of the particularly unappealing song. say it may be like a hot air balloon exploding into flames. where no amount of excess will be able to mend the severed limb.
for two or three hours. a specific summer evening. he drilled into you until failing sought salvation elsewhere. the young women. color clothes their bodies in playful banter. a seriously flawed line through the quiet room.
they come to realize the frequent fights they would have. arise the few days prior to a departure. has less to do with their incompatibility. and everything to do with the imminent fact of their separation.
she confuses desire with anger. thus many times reenters splintered doors. bruised and bloodied. he reigns in silence. refuses to answer the simplest questions. thus echoing your silence when confronted with a need to never speak his name again.
while reading an older book you discover a note from a name you can no longer locate. espousing a forever loving you. all the while he removes all evidence of having had you live with him. even the crusty stained sheets. which he finally bleaches. throwing them onto the sidewalk for any homeless want.
//
sitting across the table. you draw.
erase. draw. i try reading. but often words and beauty won't go together. later we may each die too young. when i watch your cat. when you are out of town. your cat and i growl with each other. get turned on. neighbors throw beer cans our way.
early in the mornings. after the sun rises. i sort through trash looking for quarters. i'd send you my book. but you'd not want it. you'd throw it out. along with the empty beer cans. ink covers pencil mistakes. while toast awaits butter and jelly. look at the time. noon already.
draw on the authority of yellow. as an ink drawn. a words covering. impotence lost after an immediate fades. no flakes. no boundaries. all last in line. with an easy linear time.
you reach toward any ray of lightness. common phrase prepositional hesitation. where threads bare unholy design. like that of course you are. in a sense of time less.
early childhood. tiny spiders incorporate web. space. your body. inoculate against surprises.
//
let the pattern break. the redundant repetition.
a kind of will to fail. fair game. when slight spider weight brings down a house. where will you flee. where trample now. with so little love to dose the unsuspecting.
return. his last dying moment. in a reality of such. take him up stairs. probe into dank crevices. holes in a shorn fabric. to come back. once. twice. our reality thus suspect. a short period. of a knowledge had.
you wish away your failings. anger flairs. where might you touch. tonight. surrounded by boxes. items to discard. memories to fold away. i wish not to hold you in my past. rather enrapture in time provided.
pasture leafing. a woman voices melodic riff. when you walk by. on those occasions when i'm standing outside. won't you wrap me in your strong masculine arms. invite more play. that repeatable pleasure.
those muscles. poor nights sleep. stiff necked. a fathers angry outburst. having been awakened by his daughter. her friends. one on crutches.
never accept a free handout. there's always a catch. or jesus sermon. fuck that shit. when an unlocked door is easier.
all the busy talk. politics. and where are the poems. where the art. silenced in books. or on the quiet walls.
gary lundy’s poems have appeared most recently in Cleaver Magazine, In Between Hangovers, The BeZine, Fragmentarily/Meta-Phor(e)/Play, and Vallum. His fifth chapbook, at | with was published earlier this year by Locofo Chaps. each room echoes absence, his second full length book, will be published later this fall by FootHills Publishing. He is a retired English professor and queer living in Missoula, Montana.
