Becca Klaver
5 poems
**
Begins with Story
Yes, because I am not the vagabond type who insists she has no story.
Mine is the one where mystical weight suffused every moment;
where everything happened for a reason;
where sensors jutted out from my soft spot.
Yes because on the contrary, my story begins with story.
**
What’s All This
There is no space for all this but still it’s here so let’s store it. Let’s shore it up (against love’s inlets), let’s bore it with particulars (brocade at the borders; or, And then there was this one moment—). What is this? I wake up thinking and kick through invisible clutter as around the Christmas tree, post-giving. There is simply not enough space and they’re still hiding the best secrets. Jenny used to be able to see colors surrounding people. Auras, hey hey. Heather’s good at giving all her stuff away. I wanted an overgrown mansion with a turret and a room for everyone, imagined global as something you could bounce from person to person, something that kept us all in the game.
**
You Say Dark, I Say Bright
The city proved the pessimists right. I was crying ¡Viva la freaking vida! and madly waving my sweat-stained ........pennant. They were crooning—
Ev’ry second, we’re always dyin’, there’s no reason for lovin’ or for tryin’. . . .
I was shocked by this and other ditties. I was sure it was something in the air. Cycles, I had a handle on. But ........this was a line on a hospital monitor on a television screen, a shredded and fringed Möbius strip, ........something timebound, analog.
What I remember now is sitting watching the flowers, howling bells I could not name tolling honey toxins. I saw ........the rose’s full lips pout straight through December. I laid my pennant face down in the bower and began ........to hum
Red blooms burst, they too are cursed. . . .
........and other sundry hymns.
**
Image Making
Slippery Slope
........There’s a fire in the kitchen
but you won’t put it out.
........You need to see what happens.
The fables are hard to forget
........and getting harder. Your last bit
of luck is locked in the ever-
........after box, your bulky carton
of dreamlike states. Why go
........someplace never-ever, where
your reward cancels at the last
........minute and you’re left in the lobby
of the globe of paradise without
........an access key. Where you’re left
to ask up or down, left or right.
........Which way to the lot of parked
roots, which way to hop the slick
........ramp sliding back toward joy.
**
return to sawbuck 3.4
**
Becca Klaver is a founding editor of the feminist poetry press Switchback Books, a PhD candidate in Literatures in English at Rutgers University, and the author of the chapbook Inside a Red Corvette: A 90s Mix Tape. You can find her at beccaklaver.blogspot.com.
**
Begins with Story
Yes, because I am not the vagabond type who insists she has no story.
Mine is the one where mystical weight suffused every moment;
where everything happened for a reason;
where sensors jutted out from my soft spot.
Yes because on the contrary, my story begins with story.
**
What’s All This
There is no space for all this but still it’s here so let’s store it. Let’s shore it up (against love’s inlets), let’s bore it with particulars (brocade at the borders; or, And then there was this one moment—). What is this? I wake up thinking and kick through invisible clutter as around the Christmas tree, post-giving. There is simply not enough space and they’re still hiding the best secrets. Jenny used to be able to see colors surrounding people. Auras, hey hey. Heather’s good at giving all her stuff away. I wanted an overgrown mansion with a turret and a room for everyone, imagined global as something you could bounce from person to person, something that kept us all in the game.
**
You Say Dark, I Say Bright
The city proved the pessimists right. I was crying ¡Viva la freaking vida! and madly waving my sweat-stained ........pennant. They were crooning—
Ev’ry second, we’re always dyin’, there’s no reason for lovin’ or for tryin’. . . .
I was shocked by this and other ditties. I was sure it was something in the air. Cycles, I had a handle on. But ........this was a line on a hospital monitor on a television screen, a shredded and fringed Möbius strip, ........something timebound, analog.
What I remember now is sitting watching the flowers, howling bells I could not name tolling honey toxins. I saw ........the rose’s full lips pout straight through December. I laid my pennant face down in the bower and began ........to hum
Red blooms burst, they too are cursed. . . .
........and other sundry hymns.
**
Image Making
My personal photographer... follows me around
I go into the bank... she goes into the bank
I think about how I see myself... on the silver disc
hiding the security camera... and I think of how she sees me
I get a smoothie... she gets a smoothie
I am sipping carefully... from the straw
I’m afraid my lipstick is smudged... I go to the bathroom to check
she goes to the bathroom... to check on me
finds me fauceting tears... into the sink
due to lack of berry smudge... or any other decent excuse
**I go into the bank... she goes into the bank
I think about how I see myself... on the silver disc
hiding the security camera... and I think of how she sees me
I get a smoothie... she gets a smoothie
I am sipping carefully... from the straw
I’m afraid my lipstick is smudged... I go to the bathroom to check
she goes to the bathroom... to check on me
finds me fauceting tears... into the sink
due to lack of berry smudge... or any other decent excuse
Slippery Slope
........There’s a fire in the kitchen
but you won’t put it out.
........You need to see what happens.
The fables are hard to forget
........and getting harder. Your last bit
of luck is locked in the ever-
........after box, your bulky carton
of dreamlike states. Why go
........someplace never-ever, where
your reward cancels at the last
........minute and you’re left in the lobby
of the globe of paradise without
........an access key. Where you’re left
to ask up or down, left or right.
........Which way to the lot of parked
roots, which way to hop the slick
........ramp sliding back toward joy.
**
return to sawbuck 3.4
**
Becca Klaver is a founding editor of the feminist poetry press Switchback Books, a PhD candidate in Literatures in English at Rutgers University, and the author of the chapbook Inside a Red Corvette: A 90s Mix Tape. You can find her at beccaklaver.blogspot.com.
Labels: 3.4, becca klaver, winter 2009/2010
