Don’t just
open them,
raise the blinds
is slang
for find your scene
in a painted shoebox.
Or antique suitcase
before wheels
rolled over
every effort to be
real. Gesso
and stencils
and rounded corners.
If only
I could see
a tiny door
swing open
outside my window
onto an eddy
of unknown origin.
With a spectacular
view of
a spiral staircase
modeled after
the wrought iron one
in the Trinity College
Long Room
without the competition
for attention
from a dramatic barrel
vaulted ceiling
or 200,000 old books
exuding that delicious
vanilla aroma from
disintegrating lignin.
Perhaps it could
have been
constructed from
a nautilus shell.
Sprites streak
coded messages high
in the sky
by nightfall.
Back on the ground,
it’s time to draw the curtains
in a celebration of red.
Night Poems
Speech Therapist for the Angels
For Sheri
As we recall her in unison,
I hear her mocking herself
for the way she said
“button.” I mock myself
for trying too hard
to out-walk
my shadow. She’s been gone
so long, so much longer
than she was alive.
Dimming flashbacks to our secrets
remain safe within me.
How the angels do sing
through their stutters and lisps
to thank her
for being one of them.
One Word Poems: Installment 3
souvenir
Last-Century Tells
I remember Jim Carroll serenading us with his needle
sharp poems from the bottom of Foss Hill.
I remember Spring Fling 1984.
(Or, was it 1983?)
Spotting the old observatory
crowning the top, he snarls
at our impossibly young distracted selves:
You can all go look at the fuckin’ stars.
Some loudmouth students reply:
Just wait till nightfall, Jim. Just wait.
All I catch is
fuckin’ stars.
I remember shadow echoes
and the storms they cause crashing around me
by the time I hop on the back
of the last motorcycle I will ever ride.
Racing downhill in the dark
spitting out grass, dirt, and famous feathers.
Passenger to Passenger
“I am a passenger.
I stay under glass. . . .
Over the city’s ripped-back sky.”
—Iggy Pop, “The Passenger”
I laugh aloud to myself
because I can. Diamonds
are funnier than squares,
triangles more gruesome
than the geometry
of our wrecked love.
I’ve gotten close, closer,
too close to the mouth
of a singer as her earring
explodes on stage. Glittery
shrapnel decorates the palm
of my hand. No blood this time.
I see a man
swim with his children,
tossing them in the air,
so they can make a splash
in the world.
I think of my father
and know he is
there underwater
using his gills
to guide me
through an angry ocean
to the nearest sandbar.
I get further
and farther
away. I spend less
time and travel
fewer blocks alone
in the wee hours
hoping to crash
into your imaginary black
jeep with my invisible red
car. I never know the year
or make, don’t care
who chauffeurs you
through the backroads now.
The Stouffer Inn in Public Square
has seen better days.
Goes by a different name.
All the aliases offered
at check-in crumble into
ruin porn, or do they just
ruin porn. Or ruin a poem.
Or have nothing
to contribute
except the image
of Mr. Barney Rubble
ordering room service
in an urban hotel suite.
I write more legibly—
I’m more legible—
in the dark.
Stations
1. weigh
2. polling
3. train
4. filling
5. space
6. police
7. bus
8. first aid
9. fire
10. subway
11. work
12. TV
13. weather
14. way
And the radio played without station or stanza break deep into another Friday night at the end of March.
Hippocampus
And a broken woman
writes on the wall
ruin in white chalk:
“Daddy, I waited here for you
a thousand times, but you
never showed up.”
Her poems caption
invisible sketches
of skeletal structures.
Become silent
lyrics to an instrumental
with conga, claves,
baritone sax, banjo or tres,
instead of guitar.
Her unspoken words
translate photos
someone forgot
to delete from a phone
donated to another one
who lives
on the other side
of the Malécon.
Another one
who swims
with porpoises
and seahorses
inside crumbled concrete reefs.
Grime Dance Hall
“I always tell the truth,
even when I lie.”
—Tony Montana in Scarface
You were my gateway
drug. My gateway
crime. I drew
on your face
with a broken eraser.
Loaded pistols appeared,
and the word
LOVE faded
under the hot Havana sun.
Voice Under There
The narrator rarely interrupts
the steady drip
of poems
into a tin can.
So unreliable.
She would need
to empty the can
before calling in
the next turn
or swerve
in the plot. Before
whispering details
about the secret
tragedy that will liver
punch the hero
before nightfall.
She would need
to have a hero
to intrude upon
without warning.
She’s got nothing
but this piece
of string pulled taut
and an echo
of tomorrow’s rain
vibrating through.
Ride to the End of the Last Stroke
I want nothing
more than to be
writing another poem
on a train
as it tunnels through
January fog. Who
knew the impression
could cloak
so well. Who knows
where my bare shoulders
will reappear, or when.
Then the fonts—
so physical, so metallic—
will leak precious
angel spit.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 