4 poems
by Matthew Wenger
How to Succeed in Artistic Expression
Get your heartache wholesale
Be Christmas Eve
Don't be surprised to find that
It really is how you hold
Your knife and sip your tea
Begin love in the corridor
Bloom as the sky falls
Use the worst font and discarded colors
Confirm your vows
On the bathroom walls
Blackbird the havoc
Underpost
Feast of Saint Basil
She wore only a t-shirt
and her long hair down,
boiling water for coffee.
Bake the rich bread with a coin inside
I watched her bare legs
from my uneven chair,
swam the dark red clouds of her voice, the fog of New Year's day,
the fog of the hills beyond,
and the fog of the future.
Choir up the thieves and fallen virgins
The cup of coffee she brings collapses
the planetarium of my desire
to reveal the actual sky.
The Seduction of Light and Shadow
The seduction of light and shadow woke
me, guttered me again into work shoes,
into a world hungry to make sense
to itself, where landmines lie beneath
the playground, where we all eat
each other's spit, walk between poison
raindrops on top of the fault lines.
From the carnival's wild calliope
to the autopsy notes, the ragged soul
of something continues to build
cathedral walls of candy skulls
and if I succeed through the long daylight,
and even longer darkness,
reach the thin palette I share
with my bride,
no Ramses or Charlemagne
ever commanded a larger domain.
Flowers I Whisper
Such lovely flowers, I whisper
As the saguaro cactus
Falls on my neck