May 9, 2019
Two Poems
By Micki Blenkush
Underground
after chromogenic print # 6411 by Naoya Hatakeyama
It’s hard to tell where else to look
when the light, specifically placed,
casts pure the concrete wash.
What I am saying is, once you drop
into the channel beneath the river,
don’t you want to probe past shadows?
Tunnel of cement, prison damp,
tiny splash you try to quell
as you step across a scent of hidden root.
Hollow beyond the lamp that is the body.
A stand-in for what you consider possible
as you wait to watch how long it burns.
I am talking about entrance.
Ritual to contain. Here without the people
pinching light into sanctioned hands.
Quiet but for drip and seep.
Undistracted echo. Your pulse
like waves.
What I Mean When I Say I’m Polishing My Glass Ball Collection
after Eve L. Ewing
Hold your anger out at arm’s length and look at it, as if it were a glass ball.
Then add it to your glass ball collection. – Ron Padgett
I mean the difference
between the word light
and the sun shining through
a raft of baubles drifting
toward the center of a lake.
Their moon-faced inferno.
Uninvited, I become
the speedboat breaking past.
Of the chandelier
above my victim-throne,
a prism for each
cornered occasion.
I mean, they’d be dangerous
if they were shattered.
Shards become weapons
in startled hands.
I want to ask the crows
of longings
beyond adornment.
Their reasons to ignore.
Frogs hide all but their eyes
resting in the swamp.
Hearts submerged
in every porous creature.
Glassy patient things
in the taffy-pull of time.
Micki Blenkush lives in St. Cloud, MN and works as a social worker. She was selected as a 2017-2018 fellow in poetry for the Loft Literary Center’s Mentor Series program and was a 2015 recipient of an Emerging Artist Grant awarded by the Central MN Arts Board. Her writing has recently appeared in: Gyroscope Review, Gravel, Postcard Poems and Prose, Metafore, Typishly, Cagibi, and Crab Creek Review. More can be found here: mickiblenkush.com
Posted in Poetry and tagged in MickiBlenkush, Poetry