Leaving Vineland

 

—Poetry by Robert Beveridge, 

Akron, OH

—Photos of Marmoset Types Courtesy 

of Public Domain

 

AIR QUALITY ALERT

Bring the salesman down
to the garbage dump, send
the tailor to the forest.
Sing Clair de Lune until
your jaw falls off if it means
Luxembourg divests.
Is that a pizza in your pocket
or are you just glad to see
a brace of trident missiles
pointed at the world's most
notorious tearooms?

 

 

 

 

 

ONLY THE BEASTS ARE EVER FREE

You set the page on the table, turn away
to find a pen, and when you look back
it is gone. Not on the chair. Not on the floor.
Gone. Again. You go to the fridge, pull
out an apricot, get juice on your chin while
you contemplate what sort of house demon
might have a diet of blank paper, or whether
it has embarked on a search for all the dryer
socks that you are convinced are in a landfill
just outside Poughkeepsie. The cat looks up
at you from her place on the floor. From her
expression, she has no idea what happened
to the paper either, but for all you can tell
she’s just after the pit when you’re done.
Whether you should feed it to her is another
story, of course. Whether you should feed it
to yourself is perhaps just as controversial
but you keep the grinder handy just in case.
You check the table but the paper is still
absent. Pen still in hand, you open your shirt.

 

 

 

 

 

THE PERJURING POISON

Left behind the door
but not enough to see.
Slept with the baby
without any risk
of suffocation. Was
approached for demonic
possession but failed
the swimsuit competition.
Ran for Senator of Maine,
we’ll see how it goes. Had
a thing for Mason jars, no
matter what filled them,
if anything. Attended
more funerals than anyone
in county history. Loves
that accent of yours.

 

 

 

 

 

MILK BATH

The marmoset crawled into your shorts while you were too busy with the perfect scrambled eggs to notice. By the time you’d progressed to celery prep for the chili pot, though, the claws were too much to ignore. What is one supposed to do with a marmoset, anyway? You tried some of the bean mix, a little raw bacon, a sprig of Mexican oregano. It just stared back, expectant. You read it a passage from Greimas’ Structural Semantics but fell asleep before it did. Good thing you hadn’t started the chili yet.
             Once you got to the simmer stage, you collapsed in the living room (careful not to sit on your passenger) and flipped on the TV to see what was happening. The squash invitational was absorbing, but when you noticed the emptiness in your clothing, you looked around and discovered your new friend had infiltrated the closet, nibbled the tealights, curled up in the overcoat that never wanted to stay on its hanger. You tiptoed back out to the kitchen: time to stir while the deodorant commercials were on.

(prev. pub. in Selcouth Station)

 

 

 

 

 

vineland wasn't all that great anyway

I never knew
what nothing felt like
until I sat in that chair
in a pool of my own sick
disbelief
and listened
to some old black woman
say the house
I was living in
was being condemned
“you have to be out
by thursday morning
or we'll call the police
to forcibly remove you”
so I went upstairs
broke the seal
on my last fifth
of cheap vodka
and wrote a poem
I looked around
at five months
of accumulated shit
and wondered how
it was all going to fit
in my little car
so I could move
to denver
where I knew a girl
with a room to spare
denver
and me, a kid
from beautiful downtown
vineland nj
who'd never been west
of the great miss before
in his life
in some odd way
I was looking forward to it
no matter i'd have to leave

¾ of my books behind
no matter I only knew
one person within a thousand miles
of denver, co
I looked around that room
getting progressively more
drunk
and I said to myself
“five months is a long time
to accumulate
shit.”
then I turned
mahler's 8th
all the way up
and pulled the boxes
out of the closet
started throwing
books into them 

 

 

 

 

 

SAFARI

His car is as inconspicuous
as the shadows in the courtyard
of the Dropsy University.
With each corner he passes,
he slows, separates the meal
from the stalk with his eyes,
assesses the hundredweight.
So many possibilities and any
of them could fulfill his needs
in a pinch, but he will always
look for her, the thin one
with the dirty blonde hair,
angled face, trackmarks
fresh enough to be smelled
from the street, throat
wasted, yet still soft.

_____________________
    
Today’s LittleNip:

WHAT WE DID TODAY
—Robert Beveridge

You laced your fingers
through mine, as we walked
to the car. So unexpected.
You smiled up at me, lips
a bit parted, eyes agleam.
I shiver now and smile, remember.

_____________________

Robert Beveridge (he/him) makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry in Akron, OH. Recent/upcoming appearances in Of Rust and Glass, The Museum of Americana, and Quill and Parchment, among others. Thanks for showing up in the Kitchen today, Robert, and don’t be a stranger!

The Laureate Trail continues today for El Dorado County, this time with Poet Laureate Lara Gularte reading and a workshop in Georgetown. And speaking of Poets Laureate, today is the deadline for the Davis Art & Ag Poetry Contest, to be judged by Julia B. Levine, Poet Laureate of Davis. Click UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS at the top of this column for details about these and other future poetry events in the NorCal area.

_____________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

Robert Beveridge

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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“Is that a pizza in your pocket, or…”