| The Honey Land Review Spring 2010 Volume 2, Issue 2 |
So many ways to bring eyes bright -- and backs
straight to attention! Torch-singers --
stepping with the bass -- keep the numbers up --
in sage-wild skirts -- or dolled
for men at holiday -- with nothing but moonlight now
to keep the gentlemen awake -- the moonlight
now to introduce them into business. She feels the lift
of interest -- seeing the customers again --
grinding their teeth in the old tongues -- provoking
the swami’s tears --adventuring in news
she thinks or sampling their trust-funds -- and
bringing this timelessness to bear -- bringing
their hands to prints -- behind the decades-old
grey glass -- having sold about so much --
and the grey glass cracked by mishandlings and heart-throbs.
And none she thinks alive -- except
in the privacies and nostalgias brought to scale --
except when the light’s about so much --
the egg-blue hues identified ancestrally -- parochial
and ghostlier and mean -- the room itself
so much -- bearing the musks of the survivors --
and the songs of grandmothers -- sharing
the dark and drinks / the still-live friends
of their dead husbands -- until the low
brick building burns -- and the seasons -- like
a string of late-life accidents -- bring
the children to themselves / the guest-bed heaps at play
at seeming animate -- a woman
fielding such pay -- for having led him to conclusions --
assuming herself as one / among the protean
substitutes. A kind of flipped-on hydrogen -- subject
to touch / and then to this more common exercise --
swooned -- swarmed over -- she
accepts herself and all the wave-warmed stimuli --
and all the looks of afternoons -- that
will not let her sleep -- because the cops
get serious -- heating the subject
to their liking -- and heating their own
more virtual surveillance
in the burbs.
straight to attention! Torch-singers --
stepping with the bass -- keep the numbers up --
in sage-wild skirts -- or dolled
for men at holiday -- with nothing but moonlight now
to keep the gentlemen awake -- the moonlight
now to introduce them into business. She feels the lift
of interest -- seeing the customers again --
grinding their teeth in the old tongues -- provoking
the swami’s tears --adventuring in news
she thinks or sampling their trust-funds -- and
bringing this timelessness to bear -- bringing
their hands to prints -- behind the decades-old
grey glass -- having sold about so much --
and the grey glass cracked by mishandlings and heart-throbs.
And none she thinks alive -- except
in the privacies and nostalgias brought to scale --
except when the light’s about so much --
the egg-blue hues identified ancestrally -- parochial
and ghostlier and mean -- the room itself
so much -- bearing the musks of the survivors --
and the songs of grandmothers -- sharing
the dark and drinks / the still-live friends
of their dead husbands -- until the low
brick building burns -- and the seasons -- like
a string of late-life accidents -- bring
the children to themselves / the guest-bed heaps at play
at seeming animate -- a woman
fielding such pay -- for having led him to conclusions --
assuming herself as one / among the protean
substitutes. A kind of flipped-on hydrogen -- subject
to touch / and then to this more common exercise --
swooned -- swarmed over -- she
accepts herself and all the wave-warmed stimuli --
and all the looks of afternoons -- that
will not let her sleep -- because the cops
get serious -- heating the subject
to their liking -- and heating their own
more virtual surveillance
in the burbs.
| Talk of the Town Robert Lietz |
Photo by Timothy Gerken
Robert Lietz is the author of eight published collections of poems, including The Lindbergh Hal-century, Storm
Service, and After Business in the West. Nearly five hundred of his poems have been published in print and
on-line journals, including recent publications in Istanbul Literary Review, The Pittsburgh Quarterly Online,
Avatar, Contrary, Terrain, Valparaiso Review, Salt River Review, and Lily . Several unpublished collections are
currently finished and ready for publication, including West of Luna Pier, Spooking in the Ruins, Keeping Touch,
Character in the Works: Twentieth Century Lives, The Vanishing, and Eating Asiago & Drinking Beer.
Meanwhile, he keeps active writing and exploring his interest in digital photography and image processing and
their relationship to the development of his poetry.
Service, and After Business in the West. Nearly five hundred of his poems have been published in print and
on-line journals, including recent publications in Istanbul Literary Review, The Pittsburgh Quarterly Online,
Avatar, Contrary, Terrain, Valparaiso Review, Salt River Review, and Lily . Several unpublished collections are
currently finished and ready for publication, including West of Luna Pier, Spooking in the Ruins, Keeping Touch,
Character in the Works: Twentieth Century Lives, The Vanishing, and Eating Asiago & Drinking Beer.
Meanwhile, he keeps active writing and exploring his interest in digital photography and image processing and
their relationship to the development of his poetry.
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Unauthorized use of graphics or literary material is strictly prohibited.
All content contained within this site is protected by copyright laws.
Unauthorized use of graphics or literary material is strictly prohibited.
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Photo by Whitney Cleveland