Picaroon Poetry - Issue #8 - May 2017

Issue #8
May 2017
Edited by Kate Garrett
All poems copyright © 2017 individual authors
Selection/issue copyright © 2017 Kate Garrett / Picaroon Poetry

This Month’s Rogue Poems ● May 2017
The Slush Pile
Arushi Singh
What’s on your mind?
Laura Enright
Heart Block
Kathleen Latham
Confession
Spencer Folkins
Can’t Take Me Anywhere
Neil Fulwood
Rehearsal
Joe Williams
Tied
Ceinwen E. Cariad Haydon
when you tell me Your Happiness is more important than mine
Monique Byro
baptism babe
Mat Gould
Weight
Andie Berryman
testing the spaces
Mark Young
Bluebells
David Subacchi
Man and Tree
Sarah Doyle
Poem to a Derelict Fishing Boat
Miki Byrne
The Remembrance Reel
Grant Tarbard
Chauchilla Cemetery
Violet Dahl

to Max
anggo genorga
1024 – homage to Incubus
Sharon Larkin
Why Kim Won’t Go Out at Night
Lyndi Bell O’Laughlin
Mothballing the observatory
Noel Williams
Aromatic Kitchen
Penny Sharman
Unpickling
Nicky Phillips
Sadaqah
Sheikha A.
For Her
Lesley Quayle
Redemptive Clause
Michael Marrotti
Internal Conflict Resolution
Michèle Alter Brenton
Tailgaters
Robert Nisbet
The Road to Domestos
Barry Fentiman Hall

The Slush Pile
Arushi Singh
To the Editor
They told me that everybody is not Shakespeare
But darling, everybody is Wordsworth, their voice was just never heard
So I tip toe across the slush piles pretending all of life isn’t in it
Stepping on the occasional memorably eccentric, my demon told me
Life will suck the life out from under you
He was right so here I am
A fragile atheist at my knees
Right before you
Tell me darling, does your wizard have a lightning bolt scar too?
I wanted fame in a heaving peace of words
They told me you’re good
But not for us
So I tip toe across the slush piles pretending all of us aren’t in it
Remind me when your suicidal girl gets a dragon tattoo
And I’ll slip you right through
They told me you’re good
But not for us
And I wonder when words ever mean what you think they mean
Or just what you’d kill to have them mean

What’s on your mind?
Laura Enright
Once I read online
that poetry is becoming more popular
to tweet
even if you must write
in txt spk
this stanza shows you 140 characters
(it doesn’t get you very far)
the internet is bad, boys & girls
always giving you something to compare yourself to
or something you wish you had
or someone you wish you had back
but what seems to drive people craziest is
messenger
‘Seen’ 12.23pm
k...
idc
this same friend said once that one of the toughest things
about her breakup was
having to log out of her ex-boyfriend’s
Netflix account
lucky her.
thanks for sharing.
sometimes google writes poems for me
if I type in the first few words
I wonder if
we smile in our coffins
I wonder if
anyone misses me
I wonder if
I’m wasting my time

Heart Block
Kathleen Latham
The doctor tells me that the electrical system of my heart is faulty.
Connections that should be made are blocked.
He draws a crude diagram that looks more like a clenched fist
than the battered shape I envision laboring beneath my ribs.
He draws paths with arrows and carelessly tosses around words
like missed signals and impaired impulses.
He draws a dark, transecting line to symbolize the block
and labels the area above it the Bundle of His.
“It’s pronounced hiss,” he says, “like a snake.”
I imagine it then. That microscopic dead end.
I imagine the energy of my body, minding its own business,
hurtling forward, all those cells firing off like the wave at a stadium,
thousands of eager fans jumping from their seats to cheer me on,
arms raised, mouths open, and then, without warning,
that solid black line—
Stopping them cold. Shutting them up. Telling them to take their
seats because you decided that girl who works at Chili’s was better
for you than I was, because I had to come home and trip over
her trashy, pink-heeled shoes and follow the sound of your laughter
up to our bedroom, the blood pumping in my ears for maybe
the last normal time.
“We may never know why you have it,” the doctor says.
“Maybe you’ve had it your whole life.”
But I know.
It was years ago,
but I still carry the scar
of your fangs.

Confession
Spencer Folkins
Confession:
When I was younger
I thought my brother would one day surpass me in age
because that’s how age worked
in my mind
young people grew older
and seniority was a debt to be paid
Confession:
On the day I turned ten
I remember staring out the window, knowing
the future had its own gravity
I was not allowed to escape
Confession:
I’m still learning to accept that
Confession:
When I was a teenager I ordained
space;
this place is for contemplation,
this one for feeling,
this one to forget
nothing bad could ever happen here
Confession:
I confuse loneliness for not being owed
Confession:
One day, I’ll look back
realize it’s already too late

Can’t Take Me Anywhere
Neil Fulwood
It’s me making the too-loud comment
for the benefit of a lager drinker
in a real ale pub. It’s me asking for brown sauce
in the Michelin-starred restaurant.
It’s me prompting that roll of the eyes, that
shake of the head. It’s me photobombing the Mona Lisa,
Whistler’s mother, the barmaid at the Folies-Bergère.
It makes you despair of me even more
that I know what year Manet painted it. How to spell
Folies-Bergère. Where the accent goes.

Rehearsal
Joe Williams
I rehearse in my mind
the words I have to say.
I’ve written your lines too
to sit between mine,
in the hope that you won’t
stray too far off-script.
I need to tell you something.
Perhaps you’ve worked it out,
though you haven’t said a word
about the new shirts,
the late nights at work,
or the weekend away
with friends I’d never mentioned.
No, you don’t know her.
Maybe you’ll shout
and call me a bastard.
You’ll probably cry.
Perhaps I will too,
while I’m packing my bags
or opening the door.
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
The last words are always
the hardest to write.
I’ve never been good
at endings.

Tied
Ceinwen E. Cariad Haydon
Blues and reds of silk-shot winter skies
blessed our time in Prague.
Promised partners –
only friends.
And we’d spoken true. Until.
We tramped old streets,
Stopped at bars for coffee
chased by brandy. Flushed
with adventure and daring
to go a little further.
Later, before guilt snagged,
I learnt –
love is two pairs of shoes,
kicked off quickly, laces still tied.

when you tell me Your Happiness is more important
than mine
Monique Byro
I make grilled cheeses when I’m feeling down, on days like this one.
Two slices of Provolone, extra butter, and maybe some homemade fries too,
if I’m feeling adventurous.
Yeah, self-help is a joke, but this sandwich is life changing.
I put on mismatched socks, one purple, one blue,
and I rip myself out of bed,
to just exist.
I put on a .99 facemask I bought
two months ago at Walmart,
because a facemask is as good a mask as any that I was planning on wearing
today.
I try to play “Island in the Sun” on my ukulele,
and cringe at how embarrassing I am.
I wonder if you’re thinking about me.
I remind myself not to care, then put on that sweatshirt you got at the flea
market and walk out of my stale and friendly dorm.
I sit on the grass between our buildings, and fail to draw the sky.
But I still smile, because I like the way my socks are brighter than any
Prismacolor pencil.

aptism babe
Mat Gould
Monday morning doing the weekend’s dishes
while listening to Grant Green’s Idle Moments
can fog be big or is there just a lot of it?
egg must be rinsed from the plate
because if it sits for a day or so, it becomes an arrogant barnacle of which true
labor can only remove.

Weight
Andie Berryman
Glider pilots
Don’t have superstitions.
New shoes on the table
only elicit
examination to see
if the table is strong enough to
bear the shoes.

testing the spaces
Mark Young
I shook
his hand. In
some transactions
the pressing
of flesh
against
flesh
is just the
beginning.

Bluebells
David Subacchi
This is where Bluebells grew,
Where sunlight stabbed
Between crowded trees
Dazzling children
Walking to a school,
Waiting peacefully
Below the crows’ nests
And overgrown
Ornamental gardens.
And this is where
The mad dog
Lay in wait
Starved of affection
Eager for flesh.

Man and Tree
Sarah Doyle
“On Thursday 10 th July 1834, a large barrow of tumulus containing a burial was opened at
Gristhorpe, near Scarborough [… revealing…] a perfectly preserved crouched human skeleton
with grave goods, inside a hollowed-out oak trunk coffin. […] Research has so far indicated […] a
current date of burial between 2200 BC and 1900 BC.”
– Gristhorpe Man exhibition notes, Rotunda Museum, Scarborough
This felled carcass,
hollowed body of
wood and bark and
twig and leaf, where
I am woven through
earth in thick stitches
that time cannot
unravel. This prone
giant that fingered
the sky and held
birds in its twisted
limbs, where beetles
map my thinning skin.
This cradle of agerings
that knew a
season’s turn by the
length of its own
shadows, where my
tongue curls round
old words that decay
in the mouth’s cavity.
This gutted trunk in
whose belly I blacken
slowly, where men
will come to see my
bones as treasure.

Poem to a Derelict Fishing Boat
Miki Byrne
Gulls cry out, for she who rode white horses.
Dipped and dived through wind-lifted watery cliffs,
keel balanced, bow-proud, nets flung wing-wide
to harvest natures’ bounty.
Her own curves echoed in those of a breaching whale
flash of shoaling fish, hauled in a star-filled thrash.
Decks were slimed with scales and echoed
with the slap of wadered feet, a shanties low hum.
Now she rests, ribs worn skinny by elemental scouring.
Painted strakes sun-blistered, hull pocked by scabs
of dried weed and barnacles.
Her mast is amputated, bilges drained dry
as a bloodless carcass.
Her rudder is skewed stuck, in the paralysis of death.
She lists into shingle, casts a forlorn shadow
upon rattling stones, harbours crab-scuttle
and shelled creatures.
Tips her peeling, tilted, prow to the unforgiving sky.

The Remembrance Reel
Grant Tarbard
This tiny funeral cannot convey
that we know shared loss. This tiny window
cannot completely transmit that we knew
shared love and have traversed treacherous seas.
This tiny man fixated on a breath,
a single tree swayed outside his window.
This tiny pane can’t unfurl the petals
of a life – ear ache, orgasm, toothpaste, gin,
the melted sky of a Cornish sunset –
the clouds were as empty as dog collars.
This tiny man, behind his eyes cities
dwell, weary reapers crank the beguiled lights.
This tiny gallows is the last food bank,
this tiny charnel house wants volunteers.

Chauchilla Cemetery
Violet Dahl
Chauchilla conjures
bone-chillers
skeletons draped
in whispering strips
of papyrus skin
they sing only of
the East’s aridity
and Peruvian coffee
blacker than
eye sockets
the Poroma riverbed
mourns their
sojourn – detour
number four off
the Panamerican Highway
Nazca to Cahuachi
if you please
if you believe
in etching geoglyphs
with God’s toes.

to Max
anggo genorga
don’t know why
they say all dogs
go to heaven
when they die
but i would love
to see you there —
your paws and tongue
massaging the back
of tired saints
playing fetch with angels
with that stupid
flattened plastic ball
rolling your body of
fine dark fur with ticks on
ethereal clouds and blue skies
barking on the pearly gates
as it denies entry to
some poor souls
howling on the illuminating
light as you watch angels
of death take flight
ripping off the first few
chapters whatever holy book
you might see there
piss on the throne of the
Almighty and marking it
as your territory;
go max, and mess around
have God clean your crap
scattered all over the place —

it’s much better to do than
shed a tear and run out of breath
as you finally meet your maker.

1024 – homage to Incubus
Sharon Larkin
Every morning a waif
in a grey hoodie
stares zombie-like in crowds:
airport lounge, classroom,
church, shop, office,
road junction, supermarket.
She screams for a whole minute
and everyone is snatched away.
An empty bus crashes, a coffee mug
falls, a shopping trolley rolls
and instruments lie, abandoned.
She was trying to warn us.

Why Kim Won’t Go Out at Night
Lyndi Bell O’Laughlin
The aurora borealis filled the sky
during a family vacation in Kim’s eighth year;
the cracks in the spruce trees let it in.
It spied her strong while faking only a glance
as she clutched the deck rails on
her uncle’s trailer house in Nunapitchuk.
Uncle Chuck, a gentle squab of a man,
told her not to look too close
at the undulating shades of green and red,
the purple with its yellow teeth,
but she did anyway,
so Uncle told her that the northern lights
are the dancing spirits of children
who died at birth, and that
we must be respectful.
Bullshit, Auntie said.
The big woman singed meat in
whale fat with a black iron skillet
and Kim believed all her pontifications.
E’rybody knows, said Auntie,
the aurora borealis be the spirits of
the dead playing ball with a walrus.
Kim’s Uncle and Auntie
agreed on one point.
Never whistle at it.
If you do it will come down
and pluck you from the earth.

Mothballing the observatory
Noel Williams
Confronting the attic
where only scraps of light remain
among the carrier bags and fairground toys,
I imagine planetoids of circling dust
massed at the pull and push of her heat
spun to her rays that burned through rock.
We’d taken slates, slashed the roof,
half-built a cantilevered frame. Sunlight’s
now irony, recolouring snapshots,
the astrolabe, backgammon pieces
stained with nail-varnish, unread Spenser,
Tarot cards, a dress faded as a burnt moth.
This press of objects and heavy time
that stoked desire, maps emptiness.
Our prismed vision bent all light.
Now memory’s fantastic as her heron ghost,
a tawdry gaze dazzled by fireworks,
startling and sparking and here and gone
whilst nothing happens on the ground.
The secrets I searched for lie here
in plain view. The sky’s not blue.
There is no sky. The stars long ran
from where we put them.
The fires of Venus, ice of Mars, steel clouds of Jupiter
and Saturn’s ring of knives are tricks I’ve played
to hide my accidental birth.
My mother left me staring at the sun.
My father stuffed night in his pillow.
And when a silver bird stooped to me from her sky
that was no syzygy but a casual touch
swapping moments of loneliness,
children’s marbles spinning in a hole.

Aromatic Kitchen
Penny Sharman
Mother goose, white lady has turned up the heat in this room,
so keep your shades on or the fire will sweep you off the floor.
There are three heads of garlic placed at intervals on the circle,
backwards writing, spoons, knives, a bowl of water a rolling pin,
and someone’s pointing the finger or waving a wand. It’s a fairy dance,
a ballet of silk satin shoes, transcendence around the Comal. There’s always
some meaning in how you were birthed, your blood, flesh and bone, like a
stew, a fine dining of you, the preparation of the hearth, hub of creation,
the feast of you, the cabbage, carrot, aubergine, corn peppers, the chillies
the vessel of you. You must resist the temptation to taste the banquet
in the fiery kitchen, Mother goose, white lady has turned up the heat in
this room.

Unpickling
Nicky Phillips
Unscrew the lid of the Kilner jar,
its rings as clearly marked
as worry lines on a forehead;
remove the vacuum seal,
tight as a childhood hug from
underneath the eiderdown;
tip away the brine, watch it cough
and splutter, the way dregs
of wine chug down a plughole;
spy traces of salt and vinegar, sharp
as the slap of a North Sea wind,
chill water lapping around pale toes;
unlayer sprigs of dill, garlic cloves
like orphans washed up on a beach,
peppercorns hard-skinned as bad landlords.
Finally, shake out the chunks,
restore, make whole once more,
smooth away the scars.

Sadaqah
Sheikha A.
Saturn will exit my house in a few
months – astrology has warned me of
thefts. There is a loose strand of
cobweb dangling to the voice of
the singing nun on low television. It has
taken eight years and that many sages
to discern the wrong with me. I wear
grey blankets on cool summer nights –
elegies on the border of the moon. What
are your summers made up of? We offer
lentils to the poor in my culture: gesture
of transfer – jinxes streamed into the unawares.
Plenty of sun to use of its shine. When you
point to the map, I’ll be on the near side
of the equator, dipping like the iceberg
over the tropics. The winter has left red chillies
scattered over a pair of cold feet – almost
too soon, unprepared like the first season,
concerned, divided – filling up space with
the first words coming out of your mouth.
*Sadaqah means offerings for charitable purposes, and in most instances to be rid of jinxes.

For Her
Lesley Quayle
She’s young and wears youth like an old coat
buttoned up to hide the scars and bruises;
undone by her own skin.
She invited blood suckers to her bed
split her heart for them, a rose-red sweetmeat
to lick and suck.
Never thought for even a moment
they wouldn’t love her. How could they not?
Such a sweet young thing.
They said they did, over and over,
their tongues in her mouth a conversation of love.
Of course they did.
All heart-warming stories,
tasting of beer and tobacco, her drowning
at the bottom of their sweating wells.
Mammy said there was no other way,
persuaded by the vigilant sisters,
hooded, rank as lilies,
in serried rows. She lay still,
so still, for this never-to-be-celebrated birthday
on the cold, unmarried slab
and spilled her prize.
She heard a cry.
Small island of sound.

Redemptive Clause
Michael Marrotti
We go through
this routine
every couple
of months
Where vodka
bottles explode
felonies are close
enough to touch
and pictures of
better times
fall from the walls
I like to think
of the time
spent away
as a joyful
vacation
When the only time
I show teeth
is when I smile
hands are used
to warmly
embrace others
and the bottle
of Xanax
is forgotten
Plus I’m saving
money on Tylenol
Until I attempt
to rewrite history
again and again
like a lunatic
on a redemptive
mission

By subjecting myself
to the malice
in Brookline
by a woman I
reluctantly call mom
who’s out to destroy
anything with a smile

Internal Conflict Resolution
Michèle Alter Brenton
They told me you were mine
so I held you
and gazing into the depths of you
unlocked all there was of me.
Connection achieved.
You laughed
and we called it
living.
I gave you everything
and you called it love.
Connection maintained.
I had no manual
to trouble shoot
what happened next.
I had no way to
reboot what I lost.
Connection terminated.
I continue.
I will always continue.
I do not know
how to do otherwise.
Disconnected.
They tell me this is mine
so I hold it
and gazing into the depths of it
know parts of me can never be unlocked.
Connection unstable/Working connection achieved.

Tailgaters
Robert Nisbet
Seen in my rear-view mirror, yelling joy,
nearing the snake of a treacherous bend,
two boys, nineteen or so, exuding youth’s diablo,
the roaring Mazda celebrating road.
Then, in accelerated rush, hey-hey old man,
racing past to the next bend, to a morning
crammed with imagined godhead of a kind,
their tail receding to a nearing future.
The inquest I read about. The faces
pinched and sombre in poor newsprint.
Reports of driving near the brink of sanity.
The parents broken, an emptiness of everything.
We can regret, bitterly, the loss of years
and family and festival and occupation.
They might have been, in time, seventy, staid,
but with a locker full of things happened.
But worst, their final seconds and the realising
that the youth and brilliance were over,
that they were going to die. Maybe,
an inner howl for parents, place and home.

The Road to Domestos
Barry Fentiman Hall
Paul lands upon my shoulder
His eyes as great and grey as moths
He turns gravely slow
To see that the door has closed behind him
It clicks and he sits and gazes
At the letters that I feed
He marvels at the speed
And tries to count them as they
Flutter by to Sevenoaks
Or some such
We pass some time
With nods and smiles
And warmly offered words
That trickle dry
In the hot fast world beyond him
Soft he sets off with little sighs
To push his bin
And wipe some tiles
He wasn't always this way, they say
The boy that was born
Got lost in the fog one day
On the road to Domestos
His changeling face a poster child
Asking for Information
That may bring him back
We found him once in a quiet place
Spinning a cocoon
Till the doctor came
To stroke his wings and sing to him
It happens now and then
They say

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