The summer of smoke teaching us to pay
better attention to air quality scores
A bike without a wheel
Istanbul was a cat in your bed
then turned around into an international traffic incident
Desperate for a smile.
What’s enough warning for a
tidal reckoning?
When experimentation is the object, don’t you see?
No, you feel. The eyes of the sea.
P L A Y
and some Roy Orbison MAX VOL, I expect.
I jotted this down early
before my clear bottle
arrives my sailboat,
salvation, my vessel of
surrender.
<<I am brave>>
--aged six
songs coming through the vines and lines this time around
i created a substack [https://bardicbullion.substack.com] to share my poems and intermittent posts. i’ll still be updating here as per usual and tending my website with tlc, but wanted to let you know in case you’re interested.
when it’s a rain run,/ when you’re welcome, hop on in my woodie/ my chariot plays again the Butterfly Lovers on violin,/ when there’s a lost wolfhound crossing the road,/ so you double back but dog gone;
when a teenager hangs out the car window when it’s almost warm enough outside and just beyond the stop he shouts <<i love you>> to the skateboard kid on the sidewalk he calls back <<what?>> when they laugh calling back and forth <<i love you!!>> <<what??>> <<i love you!!>> <<what!>> when until their voix dissipate in the distance
if it hurts, let it hurt.
pay more for the waves that rise and blot your book pay more for it is luxury. For this city lived a thousand years For this sinking has already commenced.
supper clubs, movie stars winning the contest (not caring a whit for the outcome, caring only for fun’s plaisir) above all, inner fulfillment this elegant pearl shows contentment
The Wish Card
two tea parties in one day all the cups end up on the floor
the soundtrack to my waking was j’ai été au bal my night viewing is a nightingale luring a fox.
this afternoon, the historian referred to the wantons as rams in spring. this afternoon of the phlebotomist’s atrocities. blaming a baby for your carelessness. how dare you. “her veins are too tiny”; you didn’t even give her bandages. how dare you. you gave up halfway. on each arm!
stories in my stack: the moors, wives & children, cassettes of a growing voice there’s an offer on the table.
when invitations are for the giving and the taking.
When it’s her time./ when the first check is here&deposited in savings,/ When it’s her time./ when the pin drops through the camera lens,/ When it’s her time./ when it’s jockey in the mail,/ When it’s her time./ when I just want to listen to Nina Simone./ When It Is Her Time.
when it’s an ice storm,/ no power for longer than you can stand,/ when the verse is a nest, it must be/ to confess./ when i got a line out;/ bloodsworth and Proserpina./
when i remember my own tipping point. when you chalk yours up to a generation's desolation and clawing for something resembling control. weight. A carrying.
You are underneath, darling, now what can i do to help? Have a cookie. Have two. Get mad. Madder even. Loose the still. I became a derelict —that’s fine, i accept— by not keeping their ship afloat. I surrender, you’re asunder. Oh I must be so powerful.
Even now, I swim the same sea—yet vast, yet oracle; skim the surf while at bottom, the sands, the deep, and theirs eat the planks, the convoluted halls, the mezzanine. A clinic of leisurely reign.
In so deep you have to remind yourself the water is moving.
A bit of news: I had the honor of submitting a poetry manuscript to Driftwood Press’ Adrift Chapbook Contest this year, guest judged by thee Carl Phillips. Carl Phillips wrote one of my all-time favorite poems, The Swain’s Invitation; the idea that he might read some of my poetry, when I have long and lovingly read his, thrilled me to the bones.
I placed as a Top 10 finalist. I am so grateful for this opportunity and to have been read. Thank you, Driftwood Press.
Congratulations to the contest winner, Derek Annis, to my fellow finalists, and to all my fellow poets who entered.
kate carsella 
