Three poems
Anne-Adele Wight
Fighting under Bulbs in April Tradition
how veins ride under your wrist like ships
trepidation
how we all pull toward the sea
marked with elemental colors replace ourselves in a cave every winter
under penalty of spring nothing left to chance
Hibernation
arterial secret
stroked in fur how we’re all made alike new bears crack flagstones breaking out of their born cave cute only at first
code rewrites itself at ground level
fighting under bulbs in April
angry fluorescent
fighting over stone bread that keeps disappearing over how many lovers can love spring at the same time
Listen to the sun hum its dark side true color amethyst feel pulsing all around you like a maze of yarn pulses colliding in an angry hive
cinderblock
captive
back alley clanging door knifepoint
nowhere left
magnolia smells like a liquid you can’t drink what will you miss by jumping off a catwalk into the river?
faces flow on top of the current seven billion
blue as veins
calling
This poem was almost finished before I understood what drove it. With the sudden image of seven billion drowned faces flowing on top of a river, the message snapped in to place: a protest against overpopulation, which has progressed to a terrifying extreme.
Radiation Freefall Seawater food supply
word play
vertical diagonal
how floodwater splits tectonic plate in its fifth season fault lines expressed as zipper pockets on a map
where’s home? deny categorically
later
learn everything
too late
fishtail dog swims ashore
what’s category? not what we call species
goes monstrous under milk family redefinition
fold ourselves to paper angles broken eggs become rare
sing their own eulogy
we grow guttural as toxins wear away our voices
DNA kisses aren’t civil
what are we coming up next? marine mammal floating island
Maybe there’s value in wearing evening dress for the wave with our name on it
burn
vapor
cycle
bread
on a scale of one to ten is it better to drown?
Let’s write a book aimed at sea eyes of something descended from us recognize ourselves
confounded
in two eyes one side of a flat head many times market price of flounder
phonetic spelling won’t keep us out of chemo chemo won’t deliver us from fuel rods thyroid necklace
lungs
recycle
broken loop
trash
complete burn half-life seawater
Last March brought a three-way disaster to Japan: earthquake, tsunami, and horrific nuclear meltdown. The levels of radiation in the Pacific Ocean will be deadly for a long time, and what effect will they have on sea life? At a cellular level, what will ultimately happen along the food chain?
What Led to the Hawk’s Nest Game board limits our options from white rook vantage
diagnostic
shows only a sliver does it sum up the game?
explain rules by suggestion:
sidestep catapult aiming down the parkway or shoot toward a museum knocking down rabble of gods too late to change your mind
how soon before mass demolition of Philadelphia brought on by weather and too many school closings leaving its grid pale as wallpaper?
I pretended my credit card theft was conspiracy shortcut to summation gold rush became San Francisco became the edge of the world
now a pillow of water separates it from convulsion sailor knots wring three corners of the Pacific Plate
pigeons lift off the parking deck in alarm
leaving dust devils twirling in heat of evacuation hear what they’re saying? no time to re-plan this
Florida panther paces toward you out of the garage
if you reach inside a pomegranate will you condemn yourself to living underground in a hail of locked cars?
teeth close on your wrist awful hacking open with broken axe you didn’t ask permission
New York spirals down Central Park drain leaving one upturned building for hawks to nest.
This poem originated with one of CAConrad’s somatic workshops. All four participants were asked to provide oracles for the other three. Throughout the workshop I kept seeing images of wild animals taking over what had once been cities and making them home.