another dram
another dram
how we carve
halls for the dead
This old desk I picked up from an antique mall
thirty years ago when I was young and flush
and had dreams of being someone —
a mission-style library table that’s made
of oak, top grain like the swirls of silt
the timeless river curls along the bank.
What we’ve been through together,
what worries impressed into that grain,
the broken drawer handle and water rings.
All the failed starts, all the bounced checks,
the polite rejections.
All the hours staring into that eddy,
bent into an s-curve by gravity,
aching to transcend:
I will step into that grain and float away someday,
both of us forgotten in the end.
Isolation
An old trope taking out
the hackneyed trash
on Sunday morning,
trips over a comma,
crashes, cusses,
spills clichés
about the cul de sac,
shifts to his knees,
scans to see
who might have seen,
clutches wads of crumpled
stanzas as if they had
again betrayed him.
He hunches all his
disposable words
back into the plastic bag,
dumps them resolutely
into the plastic bin,
then stomps back to
the plastic house,
he lives in.
I told you
I loved you
to the bone.
Perhaps that wasn’t it,
But boy are you still there
In my depths
Crushed between my marrow
And my ancestors’ gifts –
Stuck like a cloth
In a gap between timbers
Purposedly tucked in.
No room left,
No air.
I felt your touch
To the bone.
I loved your quirks
To the bone.
I shattered
when you walked
without even throwing my way
A bone.
I didn’t go to Europe
Or to the Governor’s Scholar Program
Because I was expected to work
On the farm
My absence was unexcused
When I helped my papaw set tobacco
Even though I had straight As
Instead of going to Virginia with the choir
Dad said he’d buy me a calf
I raised it
Then sold it for beef
And made lots of money
I spent it on my Sunday School class
And Prison Fellowship Ministries
There were people who had less than we had
I thought we were rich
Especially when we were together
Especially when I walked up that big hill
And surveyed our land
Looked up at the big blue sky
And listened to the frogs croaking in the pond
Or when I’d dig my hands into
Rich wet earth
Or meander through the forest
Or tickle my toes by dipping them
In the eddies of the creek
There was no green in the world
That could compare with
Kentucky pasture
That is why it was so hard to trade
Pasture green
For Cardinal Red
After I graduated high school
It was one of the only times I’d ever seen
My daddy cry
As he drove away with Mom
Back to the pastures
In his pick-up truck
And when I laid in bed that night
Thinking I’d never fall asleep
With all the planes, trains, and sirens
I thought of home
It was for love that I stayed
And for love
That I walked away
It seems green pastures
Not only yield plentiful harvests
They yield grit
And grit is gold
I need a snorkel.
Nobody responds.
He erases the request.
Author: Marin Bodakov
Translator: Katerina Stoykova
The man I hoped to be just killed himself.
The man I hoped to be just killed himself.
The words I tried to write have self-erased.
The words I tried to write have self-erased.
The man has self-erased. The words killed him.
I tried to write self. I just hoped to be.
A student says I don’t know how to teach.
A student says I don’t know how to teach.
Our wayward daughter’s on the road again.
Our wayward daughter’s on the road again.
“I don’t know how,” our wayward daughter says.
To teach a student On the Road again.
I’m only grounded when I’m in your arms.
I’m only grounded when I’m in your arms.
My way to fly’s to hide in your long hair.
My way to fly’s to hide in your long hair.
I’m to hide only in your arms. In your long hair
I’m grounded when my way’s to fly.
A student says your fly’s just killed himself.
I tried to write the man I hoped to be.
Our wayward daughter’s arms have self-erased.
I’m only grounded in my way to teach.
Again, I don’t know how to hide
when I’m on the road in your long hair.
Valued customer…
Thank you for choosing…
I’m going to put you on hold…
Thank you for your patience…
Are you still there?
Hold please…
Let me transfer you…
How can I help you today?
Repeat, repeat, repeat…
That music is not calming…
Your self-promoting commercials are not convincing…
I hear the associate’s dog barking in the background…
Or the murmur of hundreds in echoing cubicles…
I used to be a patient person…
I want to be still…
This is not his fault, her fault, not their dream job…
And still…I’m stuck… we’re all stuck…
Thanks, no thanks, corporate America…
Waiting…
