Steven Breyak
2 poems
**
Life in the Soaps
The world at large is always at large: our tiny wealthy
lost community contains more chaos
than we can bare. When someone leaves
they disappear; there's so little time
to cover our domestic backstabbings and affairs.
If they return, they're changed. An evil twin
or just an evil them. A thin straight scar
divides their cheek, an eye-patch hides
and holds what lurks out there
until they bury their ex-girlfriend
alive in her prize rose garden
where she screams only for the close-up.
Shout as you might or bang on the glass,
the static's effervescent dream sounds
die away to the cold thudding of this reality:
When we forget our lines
all we do is stare.
**
Sitcom Caste
We live in this room,
this two-way aquarium
of one-way glass.
Not one seems to notice
the way we pause and wait
for their laughter or sympathy,
how this is the only thing we live for.
**
return to sawbuck 1.8
**
Steven Breyak is a poet and fiction writer currently living in Japan. He earned his MFA from Emerson College. His most recent work is forthcoming in Night Train, Word Riot and Tattoo Highway. His earlier work has appeared in Button, Poetry Motel, Values Newsletter, and Our Time is Now.
**
Life in the Soaps
The world at large is always at large: our tiny wealthy
lost community contains more chaos
than we can bare. When someone leaves
they disappear; there's so little time
to cover our domestic backstabbings and affairs.
If they return, they're changed. An evil twin
or just an evil them. A thin straight scar
divides their cheek, an eye-patch hides
and holds what lurks out there
until they bury their ex-girlfriend
alive in her prize rose garden
where she screams only for the close-up.
Shout as you might or bang on the glass,
the static's effervescent dream sounds
die away to the cold thudding of this reality:
When we forget our lines
all we do is stare.
**
Sitcom Caste
We live in this room,
this two-way aquarium
of one-way glass.
Not one seems to notice
the way we pause and wait
for their laughter or sympathy,
how this is the only thing we live for.
**
return to sawbuck 1.8
**
Steven Breyak is a poet and fiction writer currently living in Japan. He earned his MFA from Emerson College. His most recent work is forthcoming in Night Train, Word Riot and Tattoo Highway. His earlier work has appeared in Button, Poetry Motel, Values Newsletter, and Our Time is Now.
