Burst: March 2008

March 23, 2008 Edward Peterson

About the Author
Edward Peterson is an artist/poet. He lives in Lockport, IL and grows vegetables to feed his children and alien wife. His work has most recently appeared in After Hours and Reverly.

Waking Jack

Said Sophie to Jack,
"Do you feel
distant from your family?"

& the answer shot
"of course,"

and when the gun refrained
Jack's mouth collapsed
on gums, the way a week's decay
makes the Jack-O-Lantern appear
more human and frightening

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Fold up the faces
Don the ritual smocks
Pinch closed all the beaks
Flock silent as raindrops

Then, if you please,
the speeches and finger foods
freckled cubes of cheese.

"Jack was so plump & round
& I loved him from every angle.
He was my march of time
my most effective line.
He was my helplessness, my fear.
Queer how the snarl
on his lip endeared
right until the end
& I have never grown a pie
& I have never known a friend
never nothing really
until this very moment, when
now I know it all,
free & sickening as the fall."

Sophie's face crumpled
(weakened, but as art stronger still
for the shrinking of sly smiles,
grimaces of rot, likely as not
from a week on the sill)

yes, it crumpled, pushing wrinkles toward her lips
when Sophie lit a cigarette
then smoothed the black skirt on her hips.

Poetry

maybe there hung a light on a pole in an alley
and maybe it made just the top of the car shine
and maybe there was a cricket that chirped for its life
as the days turned cold
and not enough eggs
or new crickets
or high grass

the trees had certainly been cut back
to accommodate the phone wires

maybe the neighbor lady opened an envelope
and cringed inward for many minutes
and maybe she shut it all down
preferring the antithought

she certainly rose to go to work in the morning
though those who knew her would say she looked
uncharacteristically disheveled

Frank had always opened the mail
and maybe she thought of that final beer
sweating a circle on the trash-can lid as smoke
curled in and out of the light
and maybe her knuckles whitened on the wheel

there certainly was the street roar
of rubber and glass
hard and poetic
bereft of warmth or friend

© Edward Peterson

March 22, 2008 Niko

March 19, 2008 Defining Things

Ca ne fait rien
(with apologies to Ogden Nash)
"Even though the people stare,
I am the man who wasn't there,
I am not there again today,
I wish to God I'd go away."

Defining Things

Ordinary people like Tina and Mike have always existed. Folks, who care for their children, care for their parents; family is first. They observe traditional role models, they are honest, decent -- they work hard.

They look forward to their holidays, enjoy them, enjoy each other’s company and still kiss each other when they have been apart for half an hour. They dance holding each other close or jive together whenever and wherever they feel like it, even when only they can hear the music.

They do not ask for anything from anyone, give to others as much as the boundaries of their lives permit them to give. They live and let live.

In times gone by Tina and Mike would have produced child after child, some living , some dying in infancy, they would have been part of a close knit community where few travelled away from where their families had lived for generations.

Tina had her tubes tied when the second and youngest girl was thirteen because Mike’s eyes watered at the thought of a vasectomy and they decided that their family was complete. They would have coped with birth, death, illness; saved a little for retirement and waited for their children to bring grandchildren to Sunday tea.

Today, Tina goes to bingo or line dancing with her friends. Mike stands at the bar, has a few pints, talks sport with the other Mikes. He sometimes agrees with them, sometimes he doesn’t about the big issues. His prejudices are strong in some areas, in other he is laid back and liberal. They are all the same. Discussion revolves around degree, not innovation. Opinions rarely change, they are merely tempered according to company and mood and amount of alcohol consumed.

Tina and Mike do not aspire to high art, or art at all beyond popular ephemera. They do not need to read much when they have a flat screen TV, a state of the art DVD recorder and computers with wireless routers for internet access for everyone in the house. They are content with plain cooking and a take away once a week.

Mike is worried because Tina is in pain. Tina has been to the doctor with the pain, but a couple of weeks ago she collapsed with the pains coming on sharpish in her stomach and Mike called an ambulance because he does not have a driving license. Tina does, and that is enough, he does not need to drive, but Tina can get the shopping and that of her mother and mother in law, and take the family out on day trips, so she learned a few years ago and they have a nice, but unexciting middle-aged car. The ambulance rushed Tina to the hospital in the next town, where she was kept in over night for tests and observation then she was allowed home. Mike’s face was drawn, the corners of his mouth pulled down and the knot between his eyes tighter even than when England are doing really badly in a test match, as he tried not to be too clumsy as he hugged her and helped her into the taxi.

The tests showed that more tests were needed. Tina and Mike tried to carry on cheerfully and as normal, and Tina tried not to mention anything about the pain, not even when she was asked, for three months while the waited for results of tests upon tests. Tina had already been through something like this when she worked as a dinner lady , or ‘lunchtime assistant’ at the local school and knelt down to clean some spillage on the floor and her knee twisted awkwardly from underneath her and subsequently swelled up to the size of a rugby ball. It never fully recovered. The precise nature of the injury -- never ascertained regardless of several tests and X-Rays. The outcome was that it was just something she had to live with, as she had to live within the parameters of being Mike and Tina the same as her forebears had had to live within similar parameters for the last thousand years or so. It swells up if she walks or stands too long and she needs to borrow an arm to walk from time to time and it is always willingly given.

If Mike was a little more attentive to her at the club of late than as usual, if he was a little less tolerant of idiots, called people cunts more than usual and sometimes forgot not to say fucking or fuck in front of the women, no one said anything. The women whispered about lumps and avoided the ‘really scary’ C word. Me, I was afraid to ask how she was in case acknowledgment of illness made it a fact. If she didn’t mention it, it was probably best-left hanging, camouflaged, hopefully, like the giraffe in the toilet. I told Mike that not asking was not for want of caring but for want of not being Tina and not knowing how to care without making things worse.

Yesterday Tina had the ‘All Clear’. Her pain -- defined as Not Cancer. It is still there, it still hurts, nothing has changed, but it is Not Cancer. Tina has gone shopping for new clothes in celebration. Mike has booked flights to America.