Tuesday poem #570 : Loch Baillie : Blowjob Bildungsroman

 

 

The story of the boys on the dock / one peels
off his socks / and edges into the water / now
on my back / his shoes press into mine on the
mat / I sit up once / twice / focus on his knees
/ brown hairs up and down / the fronts of his
thighs / creeping under his shorts / now I’m
kneeling / on the beige carpet in the living
room / now I’m tearing a page from a book /
slipping it inside the play horse / it says nothing
/ neigh / nothing / now I am knees down on
the maroon carpet / now we’re in bed / my
childhood bed / grows with the child / said the
box / the dark wood followed me for years /
now the bedknobs gone / now I do things I
cannot speak of / knees down on year-round
car mats / I say stay / say pray / will forth / a
dandelion seed / blow it away / make a wish /
a wish: to become / a man on my own feet /
a wish: to become / a man without filling my
mouth / with someone else’s words.

 

 

 

 

Originally from Worcester, Massachusetts, Loch Baillie is a queer poet and writer living on the south shore of Quebec City. In 2023, he was mentored by ReLit Award-winning poet Simina Banu as part of the Quebec Writers’ Federation mentorship program. Loch’s writing has appeared in Font, Maclean’s, Maybe Magazine, Society Pages, and yolk literary. He is currently the poet-in-residence for Canada’s Jarislowsky Chair of Undergraduate Teaching Excellence. His debut chapbook Citronella (Anstruther Press) was published in early 2024.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #569 : Robert van Vliet : Leaving the Story Unfinished

 

 

          1

You said it was a cloud.
I said it was birds.

You said I was afraid.
I said I was cold.

You said the spirit had entered you.
I said it was dust.

You said it was a temple.
I said that’s just another name for war.

          2

You said: Adrift
on the dry lake,
the fish looked up at us
like lost stars
trying to bite the wind.

I asked: Is it more
than letting
your skin unfurl
like a thirsty leaf?

You said: It is more
than simply setting it down
and walking away.

          3

I said: The silent bishops
toss their feathers
over the rim of the white well.

You said: They will not
teach you the name
of every magnificent
rite. They will only whisper
the same secrets
over and over.

          4

I said: Do you remember? Cut
roughly from the bolt,
its bias confessing almost
everything, but leaving
the story unfinished.

You said: I remember those
faint patterns in the weave, beneath
our fingertips. We will never
know whether they were
blood or wine.

          5

I asked: Can you hear them
walking away, stepping
lightly over the war
as it grinds the moon
down to sand?

You asked: Do you really think
they will just leave us alone
and forget all about us, like
apples once the seeds
have been stolen?

          6

I said: They always wore the sun
at their hips like a warning, smoke
on their tongues. They gave nothing away.

You said: What seemed to us
like shadow or spice
was the false rain
of rumor and sorrow.

I said: This lethal breath
is more tireless, more
true than the sunset.

We fled before it,
exhausted.

 

 

 

Robert van Vliet’s poetry has appeared in The Sixth Chamber Review, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Wine Cellar Press, Otoliths, Guesthouse, and elsewhere. He is the author of the chapbook This Folded Path (above/ground press 2023). His debut book of poetry, Vessels, is forthcoming from Unsolicited Press in 2024. He lives in St Paul, Minnesota, with his wife, Ana.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #568 : Summer Brenner : A BIRD SEES

 

 

what a bird sees on the glass is a garden of floribunda whorls of blossoms caracoles of petals concentric lines drawn with a compass

what man’s eye sees is a fragment of cloud no less beautiful than flowers but simpler with swaths of sky in between

what a bird sees is a hill of smoke and puffs of explosions animals falling and debris flying in every direction

what a woman sees is a child shattered by a bullet or a bomb a child’s limbs bloodied and broken a child’s shirt shredded along with a child’s skin

what a bird sees is a thicket of trees standing then falling flowers also falling roofs and windows cracked grass scorched blossoms exploding like stars

what a man sees is an enemy everywhere an enemy with no name strangers with guns or bombs with a task to kill whatever comes in view

I want to be a bird a flower or a cloud not a man with a gun or bomb not a task or target

Like the bird I want to fly from cruelty like the flower fold into kindness like the cloud float
over another land

 

 

 

 

Summer Brenner’s [photo credit: Michael Weber] books include short stories and novellas from Coffee House Press, Red Hen, and Spuyten Duyvil; poetry from The Figures; crime novels from Gallimard série noire and PM Press; and the occasional essay. Dust, A Memoir was published in early 2024.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan