Liminal Volume 4

liminal

L

the wake student magazine vol. 1 no. 4 edited by Andrew Larkin and Eric Brew

Š 2010

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Lessons June’s waywardness taught us lessons about brevity.

Through silk trees and topiaries we glimpsed spring’s empty pushchairs, wet artifacts unearthed by the knave.

Arise, unveil January’s dirty and forgotten fragments.

For winter always keeps so many deep blue navy blue secrets.

Springtime students of Buddha were disarmed by his drippings of gold.

He was clean like a canvas, and taut.

June is here again, so wayward and thoroughly brief.

The cycle-in and cycle-out repeats.

Buddha, how?

How were we to know that when severed a single drumbeat would feel so heavy?

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After the red comes the silver Who once said shattering scattering, who once bathed daily in the lake. Everlasting bar soap, same towel, trunks and stoic dive off the dock’s end, day’s work done.

Smoke of the last cigar dissipated.

All left is wood and objects, soap and cinder block supports of the dock. He has become the wind so I tell myself he has become the wind. Who said scattering shattering said the book ends here made of cinder. Keep the grief two feet of reach, dry knees but the face is wet.

Warmward salt slope on the livingflesh. Wind stirs at sand where once a beach— only there is ash.

Only there the suggestion of footprints where two feet from grief is felt a restless gush caress the fatal tendrils of inheritance. Who will rake the beach who once said shattering scattering is only scattered, shiny tiny shards of silver tinder on the wind I tell myself he has become.

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Barefeet Old Mr. Rumpus, poor miser, big crumpy forehead of steel! Visor laden, aunts’ big cookies on that terrible platter of Queen Elizabeth.

Everybody was gone on vacation and so the pool was ours, it was cold. The strong dog hair must have its way with ice cream.

Doc smiled out of the window of his truck though we chased it, the dentist had a wife, cotton candy as elusive as girls which were everywhere! We could not find them and the good grilled cheese seeped through our teeth in molten love and peace, the skirts seemed dangerous, like loose shoestrings and bicycles, oh lord have mercy, god of baseball, we have such long socks. Where will we walk to when the sun has set? Saw the kissy in the hair really poofy of big Jack’s mega-fawning hanging above us like big ugly stars.

We said Oh Heck No and went to bed.

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Old airplanes were made with aluminum.

High-heeled shoes would punch right through.

That’s the truth and too, one promiscuous flight attendant around the world in 80 days: an AIDS-for-all.

Even today those shoes, they could puncture the escape slide.

Toenails blood red or terror-threat orange jutting through.

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Busy Yourself Child

I didn’t know about empty-handed jealousy Until I peeked out the window Into the tar-baby night Thinking I’d heard voices.

Pick that basket of fruit back up And balance it on your head.

You know what they say about idle hands.

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i think i love (how inconvenient for you) and how but they just slay me those long-haired-Tom-Waits girls with roses in their ears so uninterested in my advances and you, Ernest with angel hair halos well-deep eyes and pen-speckled skin twitching violently off to sleep

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Roman Fever creep down the midnight streets rain-slicked, colored by the greens and reds and whites reflected in the wet asphalt, its cracks and crevices allowing the water to pool and blacken so i stomp in them, baptize myself in city slick to avoid Narcissus’ fate. as i splash i swerve and stammer down black allyways where the fingers of pervasive light can’t reach. a young man sits by a flooding dumpster in tragic Buddy Holly glasses and smokers gloves. my dripping Echo rifling through mossy garbage bags. he says “we are kicked in the teeth” i say “we will rise again” but he doesn’t hear me or has found a sliver of well-molded cheese or he’s just too tired to fist pump. i turn to glimpse his dark underbelly and we stumble together ‘til the rain bruises and i catch the roman fever.

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Without Ceremony If I found that you’d died quietly while I was out, I’d return the courtesy by unceremoniously gathering up your body parts and carrying them down the hill.

I’d sweat while digging you a shallow grave, but I’d be thankful, for your fingernails and teeth make such perfect little shovels.

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What Do You See Paint me a wobbly door to cozy up behind, lay sparkles in my hair, hold my hand during First Communion when He tickles my thigh, my chicken rubber. Sleep with stuffed animals like lovers. And in the morning golden streaks of light over-enunciate the National Pledge, blue hearts emerge from our chests.

Supposedly, the Smells got it right and remembering more dusty suitcases frantically mail photographs to people we’ve met though it is a postal holiday! when handsome men deepen their voices and read books to children in a blur of radio and feathers and people stick together awkwardly nearly basking in a pale yellow conversation moves slowly, ill-aimed, throughout the room.

Blueberries caress the nub of breakfast goodness like a newspaper crisp, lying headlong with big unsanitizing words tickling the throats of secret cannibals.

A night club evaporates in good light though a body is the same rocky specimen, hard to the taste, OK for porridge, fun, like taking for granted the modern wash, a decent lavender rub infused in hot water for when your eyes are closed, what do you see.

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slingshot we may find there is within us Goliaths we’ve created. we would rather just write it off like a signiture on a receipt. we just throw away the copy, a small pebble we toss aside.

Besides, I am no David.

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Contributors by page Sarah Rusch Rachel Mosey Jessica Mayer Marianne Baum Patrick Larkin Tyler Bradley Sage Dahlen Sophie Frank Jessica Mayer Sage Dahlen

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Ian O’Neill Rachel Mosey Dinah Langsjoen Sophie Frank Jessica Mayer Patrick Larkin Ian O’Neill Tyler Bradley S. Ritchie Sarah Rusch

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