gnomeofgarden

[gnomeofgarden]

The Book of Yeezus

Julian Randall

Every rumor about God’s face has been bad news

I believe there’s a wound above me I’m just

the wound of everything else A whole language

for injury then me Rust-child Arbor of   bad

muscle A man is a story which ends

when something tears I keep saying this

to reassure you that I was born Rabid Blueing

my own lonely In the dark I gleam My jaw

a moon’s worth of petals Touchless, touchless

I dream phalanxes in the absence of hands

I garden or I God Either way decapitated bells

drip from every passing tree At the crown

of each leg a congress of bruised songbirds

swear we were all born as revenge on something

The king’s eyes stare despite the punctuation

of the sword Bone-kiss Blood-Litany Armada

is a pretty word for too many but how do you

begin to forgive the branch I sing buckshot-

orchestral Romance the trigger and moon

upon moon upon moon until whole years pass

in a twitch Touchless, touchless Mercy

of which I am ashamed I know I could violence

Born in the contusion’s grammar I could

American Artist Gold Fang Kill Two Birds

with one metaphor Stretch my hands

until something tears in worship or demolition

Anthem Anthem Descendant of  the Wolf

scavenge the song I flex across a man’s tongue

I want to close the king’s eyes I want to froth

his blood with petals until a river of Camellias

Armada Armada Recursion of mourning

At dawn I grief you back In my own quiet

I want the sword for myself

[gnomeofgarden]

Ode to the Midwest

Kevin Young

I want to be doused

in cheese

& fried. I want

to wander

the aisles, my heart's

supermarket stocked high

as cholesterol. I want to die

wearing a sweatsuit—

I want to live

forever in a Christmas sweater,

a teddy bear nursing

off the front. I want to write

a check in the express lane.

I want to scrape

my driveway clean

myself, early, before

anyone's awake—

that'll put em to shame—

I want to see what the sun

sees before it tells

the snow to go. I want to be

the only black person I know.

I want to throw

out my back & not

complain about it.

I wanta drive

two blocks. Why walk—

I want love, n stuff—

I want to cut

my sutures myself.

I want to jog

down to the river

& make it my bed—

I want to walk

its muddy banks

& make me a withdrawal.

I tried jumping in,

found it frozen—

I'll go home, I guess,

to my rooms where the moon

changes & shines

like television.

[gnomeofgarden]

Dried Flowers

Daniel Moysaenko

Vera, the butcher shop and deli owner with the strong neck, has stayed in a deserted mill town in Ohio because she was born in a deserted mill town in what was then Poland’s new republic, and only war has moved her.

She’s overheard Americans waiting at the mechanic’s or buying apple cider donuts at the farmstand say, the photos were so moving or war makes me question how I witness. Even cattle by the road notice people watching them. They’re perturbed, as if they know the truck driver that loads them at the end of the week means to kill them.

In fact, there’s the story of a dairy farm across the road from a retired schoolteacher’s house and the Holstein that refused to follow other old cattle up the ramp and into the trailer every slaughtering season. The farmer just kept her around each year.

But now the acreage is a Walmart, so everyone wonders what happened to that cow, knowing what happened to the other livestock. When townspeople discuss this, they wear the expression you might have if you were staring at a child’s brown eyes in a photo until they watered, like a miracle, dripping onto your hand.

Vera doesn’t call it superstition to refuse to keep pictures of dead people. She shudders to hear dried flowers stay in some homes for years. A death mask to a meadow. She’d rather see the meadow. She’d rather watch life claw at the town’s rot.

She has no interest in hearing about her hometown, whether it was leveled by heavy bombers or it recovered after the war—with peonies bouncing back and the roads streaming with children who’ll have no reason to move and will or won’t move themselves.

[gnomeofgarden]

Banana [ ]

Paul Hlava Ceballos

To develop new banana exports

the Military Junta in a series of decrees 

prepared ceremonial dishes

of bananas and honored

the cadaver and consuming the

charred and crushed bones in a banana mush 

ousted the president and installed

military officers with ties to banana plantations.

On dead banana leaf or inflorescence tissues

they disperse by wind and water.

it has ten hands

they will cut off one hand

there was

a commercial / aspect

of banana workers

left sterile

from handling

nematicides

used in banana

mixture oozes

from

the severed

crown

banana growers bring

a song

about banana

I try to hide under the banana leaves when I hear the planes

give children bananas

before bed because it can smother

or suffocate

the bags are used

to cover

bananas ripening

bananas give children

energy

knives and machetes /

hauled heavy loads

of bananas

young

banana plant / purchased

by banana transnationals

is banana

hunger banana

speckled banana

with banana

bullets banana

plant banana

the banana

first banana

tender banana

American banana

day banana

to banana

be banana

in banana

and banana

of banana

American banana

tender banana

to banana

be banana

a banana

domesticated banana

object banana

overripe banana

as banana

an banana

empire banana

what banana

ape banana

among banana

you banana

bore banana

the banana

first banana

desire banana

what banana

manufactured banana

nanostructure banana

prevents banana

grace banana

blossoming banana

rats banana

gnaw banana

fabrications banana

like banana

a banana

President banana

cue banana

the banana

canned banana

applause banana

to banana

be banana

one banana

of banana

many banana

but banana

small banana

and banana

bruised banana

like banana

me banana

who banana

will banana

collect banana

me banana

when banana

I banana

am banana

ready banana

more banana

flowers banana

please banana

ok banana

what banana

wild banana

flowers banana

injure banana

such banana

sweet banana

brown banana

soil banana

yellow banana

flowers banana

purple banana

flowers banana

red banana

how banana

plump banana

is banana

da banana

golden banana

crown banana

da banana

local banana

children banana

healthy banana

grown banana

dead banana

oh banana

endangered banana

baby banana

lost banana

amidst banana

lush banana

eddoes banana

do banana

not banana

plummet banana

under banana

global banana

fluctuations banana

another banana

and banana

another banana

lonely banana

breath banana

caresses banana

slender banana

petioles banana

in banana

the banana

deepening banana

country banana

yellow banana

flowers banana

purple banana

flowers banana

red banana

inspect banana

my banana

tragic banana

skin banana

my banana

corky-scab banana

the banana

nation- banana

sized banana

ripe banana

spots banana

our banana

tender banana

hours banana

scale banana

can banana

make banana

a banana

wound banana

seem banana

smaller banana

We had to organise the campesinos and the banana workers who didn’t have homes, in order to occupy land where there were no titles or land not on the property register.

This was land not documented as belonging to anybody but the companies had appropriated it as though they were the owners.

My actions of course resulted in me being persecuted and going to prison 22 times.

I was also submitted to torture at the hands of the authorities.

You have to remember that the government of this country at that time boasted about defending private property, but in justifying this, the government defended property which wasn’t private.

All a company had to do was put up a sign up on a thousand-hectare area of land, for example, saying Del Monte, even though it wasn’t their property.

All they had to do was put a fence around it and bring in a guard or two, or in some cases a lot of guards to protect it, as though it belonged to them.

For us this was both illogical and unjust as there were so many homeless workers, so many unemployed banana workers who were suffering.

For us the most sensible thing was to make use of this land by planting what we eat.

For instance we grow: cassava, rice, beans, maize, tequisque, yampí ...

[gnomeofgarden]

Sappho 31

He’s equal with the Gods, that man

Who sits across from you,

Face to face, close enough, to sip

Your voice’s sweetness,

And what excites my mind,

Your laughter, glittering. So,

When I see you, for a moment,

My voice goes,

My tongue freezes. Fire,

Delicate fire, in the flesh.

Blind, stunned, the sound

Of thunder, in my ears.

Shivering with sweat, cold

Tremors over the skin,

I turn the colour of dead grass,

And I’m an inch from dying.

[gnomeofgarden]

It Was Already Dangerous

Lauren Whitehead

Working the 2–12 shift Driving home in the shiny dark

under the sleepless moon Curling his car around

suburban back roads Almost every day, pushing

drowsily his nice-enough-to-not-get-pulled-over SUV

Iced coffee sugared and milked into cake It was

already dangerous, diabetic as he is, for him to be

smoking all these cigarettes in the empty parking lot,

laughing and missing all these meals, even

while working the 2–12 a.m. shift at the high-end grocery

where the cured meats have their own specified domain

Hanging hocks of pork sliced thin by a woman

in starched whites and a paper hat The grocery

where you build your own six-pack and also where

my dad manages young undereducated smokers

in the business of facing groceries as they come

out of the box You probably haven’t wondered

whose hands make known the difference between

scented and unscented garbage bags, which hands

attend the 200-plus flavors of tea in aisle three

of your local You probably pass, un-asking,

by the perfected symmetry of toothpastes

and soaps neatly packed, straight-backed like soldiers

But it’s my dad, working the near-night shift,

stacking organic frozen pizzas in the cooler, label out

so you don’t mistake your vegan for your four-cheese

He is a connoisseur of cabbage, a kale-fluffing man

who knows each condiment by its color-coded brand

And it was already laborious, throwing box after box

off a forklift, hauling pallets of pesto and pasta sauce

It was already heavy but now also all the extra loads

of alcohol, ammonia, bleach, dual action disinfectant

wipes & toilet paper all the near night, canned meats

and hard cheese and frozen everything He’s already 63,

the ideal vintage for an otherwise indiscriminate virus

which lives for days maybe on hard surfaces like

linoleum grocery floors or metal grocery racks or

aluminum soup cans or lipstick-stained wine glasses

haphazardly left on shelves all over his high-end market

by tipsy white women who don’t believe in crisis

until it hits their homes It was already hard not to bring

his work home But now it’s more dangerous,

this already thankless and unseen and ignorable work

It was too much even before all this impatience,

all this insistence, even before all this aggressive fear

made him miserable, visible, vulnerable, essential