“vision board”, “the ghosts turned to flesh”, and “this body of water”

By Corbett Buchly

 

 

vision board

 

when did they first replace the processed snacks

in the break room vending machine with poems

one miniature scroll costs a dollar five

enjoy with your ham and Swiss, your diet soda

flash-drive chapbooks dispensed for six even

or have it uploaded directly to your app

you can find local poets alongside

Cummings or Plath, Rukeyser or Paz

get them too from the poem stand vendors

that line the park, couples on the lawn pressed

into their quilts, scrolls held above their heads

at the reading festival poets line

the stage, facing off while fans in darkness

cheer on their favorites

every poet evaluated on strength of image, thought

and sound, by a panel of anonymous

judges, notations are made and tallied

the gamblers on their smart phones playing

fantasy poetry league badgering each other

to trade this lyricist for that language poet

poets who challenge belief book sold-out coliseums

on national tours as fans congregate at the back entrance

hoping to get their first editions signed

inside the crowd explodes with raucous

appreciation for the poet standing in stillness

shuffling pages under a blue spotlight

angled features of cheek and nose cast sharp indigo

shadows across the visage, a long pause as the poet

waits for quiet

 

 

 

the ghosts turned to flesh

 

the ghosts turned to flesh

sink daily deeper into the earth

the soil swallows the dead

slowly but not in the way of burial

but in a slow swallowing or breathing in

only the insects, the carapace

of these bodies we sometimes loved

are exhaled back into the air

these mostly settle, the dust in an abandoned room

but sometimes this dark chitin is caught in our heads

or in the fine hairs along our limbs

and for a brief moment we are decorated

in the remnant of that last breath

that final sigh that sometimes

once, tucked away, amid a generation

can go on tremoring in our ears

for eons in our eyelashes and noses

and we cannot quite pick out that which pricks us

 

 

this body of water

 

when you arrive on the gentle slope

the sandy loam sliding into the lake

you see a glimmer along the surface

the unconscious wink breaking open

peaceful undulations on a windless day

this affable and gentle demeanor

the dark constructs alien

flitting across the depths

are hidden to you

tentacled shapes that burst from the lake’s bed

sending clouds of black soil churning

through the deep

haunting my futile and fleeting rest

razor teeth that shred scaled flesh

before dark maws devour

blood spilling into view

like ink ruining my notes

my body of water

does not sleep nights

and the moon illuminates

only what it can bear

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