Nicholas Michael Ravnikar
4 poems
**
Utility Bill
For I have estimated the jalapeno and it saves us nothing
The two trees in the courtyard cast shadows that always intersect but do not cast
........them alone
And the aloe beside the citronella candle flourishes in places and zinnias lose their
........petals rather quickly
And a hanging basket above the chair contains a plant whose name I cannot recall,
........but I'm not complaining
The winged insects would annoy anyone who sat here long enough until they sat
........here a single instant longer
That is, a whole afternoon resists the memory of it
That is, a nervous confusion arises from floaters
That is, a pastoral solitude always tends to shatter
For various creatures appear variously considered
For light flatters only from a point of view, which I understand as being distinct from bias
I should glimpse a fallen branch more often than it lingers, but this remains only
........possible through covers and covers of covers and so on ad infinitum
Which constitute a reality as possible as any single point and then what startles you
........or me, a door slams or a gunshot
**
Two Poems Written in Haste at a Local Reading
(And Later Revised When I Typed Them)
Homogeneous Solutions
According to a Transvestite maybe
My physical coffee hates your poop stain.
Your face is that poop stain. Many thank yous
For stealing my secret admirers. They're so addicting.
Meanwhile, these ideas demand intentional systems
In order to have something be about them. And you,
Ever the baboon, undress yourself like champagne
Before the dawn (of which you know nothing)
With complete anonymity. And still they persist.
They will make travesties of your travesties
So that sunlight never sees them. But sunlight
Already never sees, with it's absolute and utter
(completely redundant) lack of eyes.
Everyone makes mistakes that last forever.
Everyone accepts the things they never say are true.
* * *
The Night We Killed Lenin
On the way home, traffic jams up. The tire flats.
"Have a cigarette," I said, "You'll feel better."
We rearrange the kitchen beforehand.
We spoke of the table as reductio ad absurdum.
You never told me how you knew I was lying, just:
"I agree with everything, except the fact you said it."
The glass breaks before it shatters.
Very good boys deserve fudge.
**
Bad Imagery
I, slug of the forest
do not see, hear. But
you know that you know that already.
Congratulations.
You entail my background.
Our subject likens it
(and subjects like to thicken each)
to private dilemmas.
The right turns you make
angles and reservations canceled
Not all facts are true facts.
Not all true facts remain so.
We all get paid in lies, fact
and life to regret
What else is there but yes and no
or I do not understand.
Nature does a lot.
The forest cannot see.
**
Imaginary Friend
I took LSD when I was six and now there's nothing left to write about.
I thought skinned knees gashed leather purses, a thoroughly unclean porch
A black box, entirely plastic and plastic wires, shell, hub, voiceless curtains
Console no counsel no consolation, indoors all summer.
This much is true I know.
As a child I played a children's game no other child had known
bright cherries tantalize the darkness of my own box a stand-in I could not concede
Three manners of figure, three, whatever the body as it enters the mouth young
The joint is the thing, the way it bends, like the hump of a pillow
Its pregnancy, it is pregnant or a pregnancy that belongs to it
It is a pregnant joint in any case which is a kind of cancer
We called this playing doctor, doctor help me I have an urgent blink inside
I court them and give them voice contort a fiction of the universe each lives in
And everyone could peek or flatten their leg with a wormy log
They would become incredibly flexible their knees shattered almost like people
All of this one or the other of us must have imagined as now
Her real name Tex, I was convinced, grinding her plastic hip, it was perfect.
I had a name for that but never did pronounce it the same way twice
**
return to sawbuck 5.1
**
Nicholas Michael Ravnikar lives in Southeast Wisconsin and teaches communication, writing and reading there. He has also worked extensively with non-profit organizations as well as prisons and schools in a variety of creative capacities, from designing and facilitating workshops to producing videos. While studying for his MFA (2008) from Naropa University, he received the Robert Creeley award, and he graduated in 2006 with a BA in English from the University of Wisconsin. Gold Wake Press recently published Luxury Pocket Slide Rules as a free e-chap, and other work has appeared in otoliths, boo, Monkey Puzzle, Fact-Simile, Swap/Concessions and Cannot Exist. He publishes the irregular web-zine and chapbook series The Bathroom and co-organizes the Racquetball Chapbook Tournament.
**
Utility Bill
For I have estimated the jalapeno and it saves us nothing
The two trees in the courtyard cast shadows that always intersect but do not cast
........them alone
And the aloe beside the citronella candle flourishes in places and zinnias lose their
........petals rather quickly
And a hanging basket above the chair contains a plant whose name I cannot recall,
........but I'm not complaining
The winged insects would annoy anyone who sat here long enough until they sat
........here a single instant longer
That is, a whole afternoon resists the memory of it
That is, a nervous confusion arises from floaters
That is, a pastoral solitude always tends to shatter
For various creatures appear variously considered
For light flatters only from a point of view, which I understand as being distinct from bias
I should glimpse a fallen branch more often than it lingers, but this remains only
........possible through covers and covers of covers and so on ad infinitum
Which constitute a reality as possible as any single point and then what startles you
........or me, a door slams or a gunshot
**
Two Poems Written in Haste at a Local Reading
(And Later Revised When I Typed Them)
Homogeneous Solutions
According to a Transvestite maybe
My physical coffee hates your poop stain.
Your face is that poop stain. Many thank yous
For stealing my secret admirers. They're so addicting.
Meanwhile, these ideas demand intentional systems
In order to have something be about them. And you,
Ever the baboon, undress yourself like champagne
Before the dawn (of which you know nothing)
With complete anonymity. And still they persist.
They will make travesties of your travesties
So that sunlight never sees them. But sunlight
Already never sees, with it's absolute and utter
(completely redundant) lack of eyes.
Everyone makes mistakes that last forever.
Everyone accepts the things they never say are true.
* * *
The Night We Killed Lenin
On the way home, traffic jams up. The tire flats.
"Have a cigarette," I said, "You'll feel better."
We rearrange the kitchen beforehand.
We spoke of the table as reductio ad absurdum.
You never told me how you knew I was lying, just:
"I agree with everything, except the fact you said it."
The glass breaks before it shatters.
Very good boys deserve fudge.
**
Bad Imagery
I, slug of the forest
do not see, hear. But
you know that you know that already.
Congratulations.
You entail my background.
Our subject likens it
(and subjects like to thicken each)
to private dilemmas.
The right turns you make
angles and reservations canceled
Not all facts are true facts.
Not all true facts remain so.
We all get paid in lies, fact
and life to regret
What else is there but yes and no
or I do not understand.
Nature does a lot.
The forest cannot see.
**
Imaginary Friend
I took LSD when I was six and now there's nothing left to write about.
I thought skinned knees gashed leather purses, a thoroughly unclean porch
A black box, entirely plastic and plastic wires, shell, hub, voiceless curtains
Console no counsel no consolation, indoors all summer.
This much is true I know.
As a child I played a children's game no other child had known
bright cherries tantalize the darkness of my own box a stand-in I could not concede
Three manners of figure, three, whatever the body as it enters the mouth young
The joint is the thing, the way it bends, like the hump of a pillow
Its pregnancy, it is pregnant or a pregnancy that belongs to it
It is a pregnant joint in any case which is a kind of cancer
We called this playing doctor, doctor help me I have an urgent blink inside
I court them and give them voice contort a fiction of the universe each lives in
And everyone could peek or flatten their leg with a wormy log
They would become incredibly flexible their knees shattered almost like people
All of this one or the other of us must have imagined as now
Her real name Tex, I was convinced, grinding her plastic hip, it was perfect.
I had a name for that but never did pronounce it the same way twice
**
return to sawbuck 5.1
**
Nicholas Michael Ravnikar lives in Southeast Wisconsin and teaches communication, writing and reading there. He has also worked extensively with non-profit organizations as well as prisons and schools in a variety of creative capacities, from designing and facilitating workshops to producing videos. While studying for his MFA (2008) from Naropa University, he received the Robert Creeley award, and he graduated in 2006 with a BA in English from the University of Wisconsin. Gold Wake Press recently published Luxury Pocket Slide Rules as a free e-chap, and other work has appeared in otoliths, boo, Monkey Puzzle, Fact-Simile, Swap/Concessions and Cannot Exist. He publishes the irregular web-zine and chapbook series The Bathroom and co-organizes the Racquetball Chapbook Tournament.
Labels: 5.1, nicholas michael ravnikar, spring 2011
