I feel it in the pit of my stomach and
in the stinging of my eyes. I try
to blink it away to
turn my back to the mirror to
avoid my reflection.
My childhood is dragging behind me like
a shadow I sewed to the soft of my sole and
I want to peel a tangerine maybe
give her half. I still avoid
my reflection.
I have buried the boys like
seeds. There are so many flowers
blooming in my lungs
there’s barely any oxygen
left
behind.
These are tumultuous times I
tell the ghosts and like
ships they heave up and down the
coving and they nod and
disappear.
I carry my dad’s rage like a
talisman I was forced to hang
around my neck like a
ring that needs to be destroyed.
And the boys and the ghosts and
the little girl with the tangerine they
all look up at me and I’m
only getting older; I still
don’t know what to say.
A week away from Ground Hog Day
And my water heater’s sore.
It spat at my clumsy plumbing,
Took a leak on the basement floor.
That triggered my elderly sump pump
To noisily heave up its guts.
My cat on the workbench watched me endure
The death of a thousand cuts.
I loaded my Remington 12 gauge,
Thirteen rounds, counting one in the hole.
I returned to my waterlogged basement
And said “Darlin’, let’s rock and roll!”
I pumped the rack like a madman,
Drawing lines between the dots.
My neighbor had a heart attack
When he counted thirteen shots.
Then I ponied up and loosened my grip,
Put the Remington down, wiped the sweat from my lip.
I find no game in a proctored arena.
My demeanor is salty and gruff.
And it makes me laugh like a tickled hyena
When I’ve proven enough is enough.
And I celebrate the damage with an innkeeper’s perk,
Appreciating vengeance drinking whiskey after work.
P.S., I've got a Weil-McLain on order.
Snow chickens dust the high moors.
White partridges grounded by rain
crouch and huddle
burrow into the gorse
then as if forgetting the storm
they heave up into the wet air
just a little way
just enough to
cluck, bluster, and rattle,
then to settle back
scolding and flustered
as only termagant ptarmigan
can.
Binoculars tight to eyes,
soaked, ankle deep in mud -
chilled to the bone.
Highland cattle
stare back blankly
as if I were just another
silent P.
Snow chickens dust the high moors.
White partridges grounded by rain
crouch and huddle
burrow into the gorse
then as if forgetting the storm
heave up into the wet air
just a little way
cluck, bluster, and rattle,
only then to settle back
scolding and flustered
as only termagant ptarmigan
can.
Binoculars tight to eyes,
soaked, ankle deep in mud -
chilled to the bone.
Highland cattle
stare back blankly
as if I were another
silent P.
My hands are bound
chasing rolling hand grenades
down an alley called fortune.
Hoping for shrapnel to teethe
while I heave up stomach acid
and try to catch my breath.
But I’m drowning-
gurgling The American Dream.
Tired. Slowing down.
Listening to the far-off bangs
that will never reach me.
They’re all celebrating-
I’m skinning my knees on
the porous surface of clarity.
Watching my volatility sink into a daydream in the making.
Grinding my teeth together
trying to make sparks.
-James Kelley 2018
I have a confession, a truth to be told,
A secret that I can now say.
A fact of my life that I’ve always lived with,
A secret I have hidden away.
And that is that I binge every day,
I fill till I’m full, till I bloat.
Then, like clockwork, when I’m simply too full,
It exits along my tarred throat.
And I emit every colour of fruit and veg,
I heave up all sorts of fresh meat.
This purge occurs every day about noon,
Then again at six, all over the street.
There’s vans and trucks and cars and utes,
They leave me empty by dark,
But then they return the very next day,
To me, their shopping car park.
Wright, write right
Real men eschew fright
In this place, wrongs are right
Traditional rites in daylight?
Expose how that day turned night
In that pen there is might
Take a step with great delight
Right things be written right
Include that supernatural flight
Get thy vision shinning bright
Heave up thy humdrum sight
Think deep and be a knight
Maybe, if everyone behaves themselves,
If the snowpack is deep and thick around elm and maple,
And the tourists didn't stay away for lack of snow.
If the temperatures stay cold at night, and warm in the day,
So the Sugarers stand a chance to break even.
And if the river is especially good,
And doesn't heave up pack ice,
Doesn't burst its banks,
And doesn't scour the topsoil from the lower fields.
Then we'll go out past where we found the Fiddleheads popping up.
We'll sidle past the poison ivy.
We'll poke tenderly underneath the blackberry bushes.
We'll feel the warmth on our backs and the old, dark coolness on our faces.
And we'll look, eyes squinting, for the honeycomb pattern.
Delicate like lace, golden and glowing.
They would tell us that the winter was hard, cruel and unfair.
But the spore survived.
The intricate network courses to life.
The promise was kept again.