Jackie Clark
3 poems
**
Moving
& the sirens expand down
the avenue & then into the distance
& then to every place my extensions
have yet to reach—the same
thing which wakes me & drives
me to sleep & why it is that I accept
this will be here in the morning
after the excitement of having
something up my sleeve passes.
There are phone calls without faces
& making plans that feel redundant.
Nights of creaking by are over,
here it is mostly quiet except
for someone's car stereo a few doors
down, mostly the sidewalks
look the same & all the faces
of buildings are signed. Now
just a repetitive nightly thumping
& once level ground skewed toward
doom without a closet. It's hard to say
what one would choose between
commodifiable sighs & what is cowering
under the couch. These hard woods
speak nothing of desire, they only
buckle, uncertain of stature & voices.
Framework is the easy part, magnetic
wanderings only have so many options
& continually let negotiation slide
down its side. In fullness this naming eeks
out diversions like my quick miss against
the curb, tapping forward each colorless
instrument before perching at the throat
of my ego, knocking at my teeth to open
the sequestered dilemma which reclines
each time there is a stirring & is spun
among street wires outside your window.
**
Midnight Meditation
There is nothing left to lift, having looked in elevator
shafts & other places where darkness is found. Against
the same negation I nestle, neck-long, undeveloping
what you are trying to create, the grey & emboldened
etchings found around the edges of your figure, shying
& hiding from that which we know to be day. Another evening
of waiting & sending off messages into the air,
coupled with the rubbing up of two cavities & the fact
that you believe in another end. Again it is morning
& we lie breathless in the middle of two distances.
**
Pink, Plastic Flamingos
A bird flies overhead
& it doesn't matter
that no one notices.
It is October
& the billboards
are skimming
the edges & books
& arms expect
refrain. Someone's
hair is lightly pulled
back in fists, mediated
in mouthfuls; the teeth
of something much
faster than escape.
The ceiling is not
glass. Metaphors
are useful: raspberry,
a lion in a cage.
The decision to get up
& go is just that.
**
return to sawbuck 2.1
**
Jackie Clark is a poet living in Jersey City, NJ. She is currently an MFA student at The New School in New York, where she is also a reader for LIT. Some of her writing has appeared in XConnect, Capgun, and most recently Sub-Lit. More of her work can be found at http://nohelpforthat.blogspot.com.
**
Moving
& the sirens expand down
the avenue & then into the distance
& then to every place my extensions
have yet to reach—the same
thing which wakes me & drives
me to sleep & why it is that I accept
this will be here in the morning
after the excitement of having
something up my sleeve passes.
There are phone calls without faces
& making plans that feel redundant.
Nights of creaking by are over,
here it is mostly quiet except
for someone's car stereo a few doors
down, mostly the sidewalks
look the same & all the faces
of buildings are signed. Now
just a repetitive nightly thumping
& once level ground skewed toward
doom without a closet. It's hard to say
what one would choose between
commodifiable sighs & what is cowering
under the couch. These hard woods
speak nothing of desire, they only
buckle, uncertain of stature & voices.
Framework is the easy part, magnetic
wanderings only have so many options
& continually let negotiation slide
down its side. In fullness this naming eeks
out diversions like my quick miss against
the curb, tapping forward each colorless
instrument before perching at the throat
of my ego, knocking at my teeth to open
the sequestered dilemma which reclines
each time there is a stirring & is spun
among street wires outside your window.
**
Midnight Meditation
There is nothing left to lift, having looked in elevator
shafts & other places where darkness is found. Against
the same negation I nestle, neck-long, undeveloping
what you are trying to create, the grey & emboldened
etchings found around the edges of your figure, shying
& hiding from that which we know to be day. Another evening
of waiting & sending off messages into the air,
coupled with the rubbing up of two cavities & the fact
that you believe in another end. Again it is morning
& we lie breathless in the middle of two distances.
**
Pink, Plastic Flamingos
A bird flies overhead
& it doesn't matter
that no one notices.
It is October
& the billboards
are skimming
the edges & books
& arms expect
refrain. Someone's
hair is lightly pulled
back in fists, mediated
in mouthfuls; the teeth
of something much
faster than escape.
The ceiling is not
glass. Metaphors
are useful: raspberry,
a lion in a cage.
The decision to get up
& go is just that.
**
return to sawbuck 2.1
**
Jackie Clark is a poet living in Jersey City, NJ. She is currently an MFA student at The New School in New York, where she is also a reader for LIT. Some of her writing has appeared in XConnect, Capgun, and most recently Sub-Lit. More of her work can be found at http://nohelpforthat.blogspot.com.
