Calcination
after Dan Simmons
this night’s rubedo
imparted in one hug
by the hood of your car
my fists go out like fountains to you
You bishop
diagonal, sly
always forward
I pawn, chained
in the crucible,
have yet to see
whether you will
invoke your
vengeful g-d
or fall to five white
pawns to save your king
kemi, base, I vow
to fall in your stead
as our purblind monarchs
wander the hearth
Good Friday
After that, of course, he had no
choice but to ridicule the mourners,
mock their tears, as if the moisture
on his own face were in any way human.
He had found two women among the crowd,
Greek, they seemed to be, who looked as if,
with enough commiseration and feigned
respect, they would let him take them home.
He looked over at the guards, who paid
mute homage to some other execution
with a pair of dice, and wished he were
with them, having rolled a seven
and collected, perhaps, a gold Rolex,
a calfskin wallet.
Oak Street
It lies in the middle
of the road, tail
twitches, red froth
oozes from cracked lips
red and blue lights
flash, echo off
into the distance
a few after-hours
stumblers notice it
one puts it down
with a handy rock
as it dies it gives
his hand one last
feeble lick
Scenes from an Irish Restaurant
I
Grey predawn mixes
with orange halogen.
The casino wouldn't let
you wager your chips, but has
a strict no-refund policy.
You consider a complaint
with a limo trunk, harbor
fish. A solution in overexposed
photographs and crane game
prizes torn in half. Again you
woke ninety minutes before
the alarm, but you marvel
that the sun has not risen
yet. You wonder if glass cleaner
might assist. Your anniversary
approaches, round peg somehow
shoehorned into square hole, but
the courier with the presents requires
absent daylight. Mead may help.
Your next decision: hire a private dick
to investigate the lack of fusion or take
the job on yourself? After all it could
be as simple as cloud cover. The tools
of torture, of frustration are just to hand
which complicates the decision. As
does your languor.
II
The doors are sized
for kobolds, bad rap plays over
the muzak. Every time you visit
the restroom, the larger stall es occupado
and you're stuck with the one that's six
inches wide. You have to straddle
the toilet to close the door. You
consider whether to shave, decide
you couldn't give two bits or
the inevitable haircut.
You look out the window. Someone
put a trash can on the roof
opposite sometime overnight.
Snow shovel next to it even though
it is only October. The lid
is ajar. In the crack you wonder
if that is light you see, or just
halogen reflected off gold
teeth crooned over by
vibrators. With such a tiny toilet,
you quail to consider
the shower stall.
Your wake-up call arrives
in the form of an ex-boxer
with a suspicious, but
delectable, bulge in his
Dickies. Ablution,
as always, invites.
The sky is grey, but
lightens. You ante up.
The Star
St. Barbara the Water Carrier sat next to me
in the track bar and stared. Sometimes at me, sure,
but also at the big Galleano bottle that was
the centerpiece of every barback in 1997,
the other patrons, the Racing Form,
the TVs showing racing from Suffolk Downs,
Ellis Park, and other such tracks where the nags
couldn’t manage a 1:12 six furlongs if they were
being chased by a horse of angry Australian rabbits
(but were still a step or two up from Thistledown,
where she stared at things).
It’s an unspoken part of track etiquette
that you never order a negroni before the fifth
or the first bottom-level maiden claimer
has posted its payouts, whichever comes first.
It was barely the third, but I ordered two
and slid one down to St. Barbara. The third
was a $7,500 allowance for nonwinners
of four lifetime or $16.500 in the past
six months. When my pencil poked
at the past performances the night before
I hadn’t found any inspiration in this one,
but ready to come out
on the track was the six, a horse
called Three Jugs, followed by the eight,
Endless Flow. How does that not invite
gin, galleano, and a ten-dollar exacta box
when the patron saint of those jugs
and their constant river sits two seats
to one’s left? Not a cloud in the sky
but I drained that drink, stood up,
and petitioned St. Barbara for rain
all the way to the windows.
*****
Robert Beveridge (he/him) makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry on unceded Mingo land (Akron, OH). He published his first poem in a non-vanity/non-school publication in November 1988, and it’s been all downhill since. Recent/upcoming appearances in Cacti Fur, Password, and The Stray Branch, among others.
