Poem: 'Jakob'

Innocuous halls of a candy store:
glass, safety, sweetness all around —
somewhere in københavn,
but it could have been anywhere,
my lovely dane,
anywhere,
with the same saccharine, sick smell,
but here his hand was somewhere,
counting change in my hand —
really, with no meaning at all —
just to count change. Softness on softness.

I felt his touch, slightly, a brush
and his name tag remarked
‘You’re from abroad?’ —

for a moment only us,

a caress; it was only us:
‘Yes, I’m from abroad,’ then a laugh, a smile.

I wanted his touch; though, I only grinned
And Jakob smiled back,
Then, gone,
I kept rushing and swinging, relishing and imagining;
I kept breathing, He: continuing, space lengthening
into an ephemeral distancing then gone
into banal innocuity: a saccharine sweet smelling calm forgetfulness

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Thrasher

"Double Thrasher Kid"

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image credit: Greig Roselli © 2007 

Poem: "Jeremiah"

    God, an androgynous childe,
    an avatar of muslin, a linen whisper,
    starched, turning turning, a leg cradles
    into a V, pointed east, west
    (A virile, crude me posted to a chair)
    A mild body straight at the waist then
    a triangle; God mimics a turn
    in a cream gown; sweeps,
    quivering beneath the torso,
    not quickly, but delicately slow, like a gliding
    erne: people scurry, people rush,
    scatter, swim, splash and go —
    but God turns a laggard pirouette,
    a brief muse, merely monochromatic
    and out of focus, a dim apparition
    spoken out of vesperal incense.

    Invading choir, God does a retiré,
    then evanescence, a flush smooth wipe
    from the serviette.

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Poem: Burnt Sienna

Mark is burnt sienna,
burned and wrought like a serpentine
fox, a lusty red torpor veiled
as a troubadour, a dapper dan
who stole my luster, my zest, my naïve
sheen — I was beige and taupe,
ecru and serene; now I am
brown, almost crayola white with
love handles dangling down, hazel in
my eyes, sipping a hazelnut coffee
just for spite, a greengage by my
side; yelling to be heard, smoothing out
dry, liver spots from my eyes

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Poem: "Forgot to Listen"

Forgot to listen, learned one voice.
Stood erect, a little shaky, stood to one side —
learned to mimic a consuming system,
jamais penetrate, just preserve,
emitted jelly slugs, phage, phage, phage.
Spoke magnificent monotones with glee,
curved a unilateral smile and a sly handshake
grasped. A chuckle and then a dead listen.
Untied a bulbous, enveloping shoe,
engorged, overfolded the dialectician,
held the united sphere and showed the germ.
Proclaimed the world, as mighty metaphysician.
Dissected and stored it all in a little shop,
Plowed through the murk, to the immediate, ethereal top.
image credit: Greig Roselli

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Poem: Mim's Gin

like a flemish still life

     placed

    on the bed George made

    there stands a space of wood that the mattress has provided,

    a bottle of Mim’s Gin,

    bought from Wal-mart,

    placed there like a girl in a pirouette,

    softened by the color of Ticonderogas and sticky notes,

    torn up pieces of magazine, the dried cuticles of fingernails,

    a stained tumbler resting on the side;

    placed there to become there a flemish still life,

    a framed design of cheap, store-bought beauty,

    so it is not moved,

    when tidying up the room,

    but stays there on the edge of the bed,

    half-full;

    their contents — says the voice in your head —

    are to be emptied,

    to drain a hundred miles of frustrated tears

by Greig Roselli

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Poem: "Staten Island Ferry"

View of Governor's Island from the Staten Island Ferry

She clustered her brown self sailing
in a corner amidst friends,
winds and Liberty smiling like a skewed
Mona Lisa
but he, only staring, clutching pewter-like bars,
foam fetching and returning
and he waiting to touch soil anew.

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