Inshallah

Mike Sukach

INGENUITY

—Mike Sukach, Colorado Springs, CO

A lever can move the world, a stick a stone. 

Birds fashion hooks to fish worms from a pot.

Ford put moonshiners on the road, moon- 

shiners stilled moonshine in their Fords.

E.E. Cummings made rain in poems rain. The moon 

we made just days after launch the year I was born.

Once, in a faraway land, many men or one man said, 

no one could fly a kite; but then their illiteracy soared.

My dog will lick and nudge and skate a tinfoil pan 

across the floor, then paw it to keep it from budging.

Rosetta’s stone now fits in a phone that sits as small 

as a little blue bird biting big hard words soft & small.

No wine glass, a coffee cup, no cup, the bottle; 

no power, a pen, no ink, a pencil, then blood.

My wife places apples slices on the stone 

outcropping that defends this quiet patio

where I read and write and smoke too much. 

“So the bears and wolves and crows can eat.”

Inshallah, I am still sitting there learning old words 

from a book the beasts can already read in the dark.

_______________________

tear

—Mike Sukach

most begin somewhere 

beyond the glacial 

color of the iris 

in the deep infinity 

light sails through

the crystal lens 

a firth of terns 

storm-petrels 

inverted falls 

the sea overhead

those I like

wash the world 

quietly out of focus 

so I can return

______________________

SUBSCRIPTIONS

—Mike Sukach

I have a ton like Star Trek tribbles

they arrived early in the century 

the postman kicked them

 under my door 

as if he were sweeping 

away a hallway of pesky cats 

who tried to snuggle somewhere 

between the distal phalanx of the hallux 

and the stern metatarsal of the foot in his boot

the first poems inside were thin 

not sick thin, bulimic thin
but curvy          sexy thin

bone thin 

stamen 

thread 

razor 

cobweb 

nano                     thin

others arrived in varying weights 

and velocities 

one year they were all run-away pranks 

knocking at my door 

knock knock                          

                                                   pizza

but there was only the volume 

leaning against the threshold 

too drunk to make it home 

or care where that was
those I let in 

sheltered 

eventually 

mislaid
in couch cushions       under the stove 

and are still muttering about loss and love

decades of them displaced 

dishes 

TV trays 

Scrabble boards
others 

replaced stools

became pillows 

flyswatters 

coasters 

some sufficed nicely when a window broke 

or a new mouse hole happened

to appear

years passed and the fire marshal condemned 

my apartment 

a risk to the entire tenement 

bylined articles
in desultory newspapers    all over the world 

reinvented my entropic wilderness 

Guinness World Records called
                 but never “stopped by” 

so I evicted myself
in pushcart after 

     pushcart
after pushcart

seeing me is easy          now 

as I am never without them 

a train 

traffic
jam 

column 

bloodline 

holding hands around a fountain

                                                ten cents some (now) ask
thumbing too seriously 

petting too suspiciously 

sniffing too antiquely 

my carts
boxcars 

empires 

of subscription poetry

but none are too sure when I tell them the special 

ten to look                      but we take it in nickels

Mike again

DESCENDENTS

—Mike Sukach

His house once lit up like the word ambulance, birthday, or sex...he, he had cancer that he flew to Boston and made prestigious in some medical journal...

She hypercorrected her own speech and never could finish a crossword...she lost her husband then sold everything he ever owned, had their house painted, and hadn't spoken to any one of us since...

He frolicked and screwed up the complete sentence structure of conversations...he flew helicopters in Iraq and usually stood behind his wife at parties...

She had six dogs on six leashes who were liberated from shelters...she worked in a vet clinic (not soldiers but pets and wildlife) and watered every single plant in her yard individually...

His death interrupted our broken after-work talk about nothing in particular...he had Alzheimer's, bludgeoned his wife once, and couldn't remember home...

She was convinced that butterflies were conscientious about their syntax...she shaved her pubic hair into a prefect "V" as if it were half the chiasmic letter "X" or something with wings...

He never said much after the sixth grade and too many fist fights...to tell the truth, he had an incondite vocabulary, taught Shakespeare and Bukowski together, and was humbled at the thought that people talked about him behind his back.

______________________

PRELUDE
—Mike Sukach


blueberry colored eyes

plum sex

the first aspects

of your figure

I encounter

reaching

in for the one

Fuji apple

in a cart full

that hung

as if plucked

from the leafing

branch of your arm

the stem pinched

between your fingers

the soft S

slithering

from the bough

of your tongue

to insist

_____________________

Thanks to Mike Sukach for today's poetry and pix! About himself, Mike writes: I am seventeen years into my career as an officer in the United States Air Force and, as such, a veteran of numerous wars and conflicts, most of them familiar despite the hyperbole with which they are too often declared and subsequently rendered unrecognizable. At the moment, I live in Colorado Springs, teach writing and literature at the United States Air Force Academy, and direct the Air force Professional Writers Workshop.

Currently, Mike has fiction forthcoming in the 2012 Winter edition of Ontologica and The Citron Review. His poetry has appeared in The Blast Furnace and his poem, “Invocation,” was recently selected as a finalist in the Sow’s Ear Poetry Review’s 2012 poetry competition. He also has poetry recently anthologized in Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors, published by Southeast Missouri State University Press. Take a closer look: www.mksukach.com.

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

a day in the life
—Mike Sukach

no, i'm not making you another saucer of coffee... 
dogs don't have regrets, i don’t think... 
stop looking at me like that... 
i heard you the first time...
why don't you ever pee on her side of the bed... 
quit fussing, lay down... 
you can't drive, get off the wheel...
i don't know what that look means...
you smell like bologna... 
i'm not sure why you don't like other dogs... 
i haven't seen your ball... 
well, if the shower is on, you're getting in... 
yes, dog is god backwards but... 
i'm not sure why you have more than one name... 
it’s late, go to sleep already...

i know your ears hurt... 
i'm trying

_____________________

—Medusa