Unless the “you” in “Poem” plays a literal violin—and even if so—right smack at the start of the piece the speaker’s extreme worldview is apparent. With the instrument’s cameo, we can’t help but think of the world’s saddest song on the world’s smallest violin, and the array of characteristics connected to that idiom (melodrama, indulgence, exaggeration). The speaker’s wish is to “be a tiny mike on your violin / the gem that solves everything.” Now we’ve implicitly got on our hands the world’s saddest song, the world’s smallest violin, and “everything,” which apparently possesses the ability to be solved by a single precious jewel.

“I” is an exhausting being already. She continues throughout the long poem to reach and rove and amplify. On top of her first wish, she says she’d “love to be a Liz Taylor, rising up from the foam of every thing.” The indefinite article here is used kind of weirdly (“a Liz Taylor” instead of Liz Taylor). Maybe this alludes to the object (countable) Taylor became or almost became. Obviously no one can be Liz Taylor, but perhaps we can be “a” Liz Taylor. And what better figurehead of exaggeration than Liz Taylor, with her glamorous, much publicized life? It’s as though the speaker would love and will attempt to be just about anything as long as it’s “plain matchless” and wildly far in any direction.

For our exceeding speaker—who seems to be endlessly trying to answer the question she asks herself, “why am I so useless?”—the universe veers, ungrounded, unreasonable. She sits “in the desert / taking in the heat / on the dunes . . . Until they’re not like unto breasts, / but dunes.” Her surroundings, instead of existing in their natural states, oddly must revert back to them. It requires “a very long time / wandering, sitting” for her to see the dunes as dunes. Then: “I’m so relieved I’m in love with you. / It’s like being on the other side of a big / old Mississippi”—a similar moment, with that jarring “a,” to the “a Liz Taylor” one.

“[I]t’s time I saw everything,” the speaker says. She’s trying and trying to squeeze it all into a lifetime—hell, into this poem. But as the piece nears its finish it quiets down, with the speaker and “you” represented in a variety of positions, meditative poses, not unlike stitches being knit together (see “Through the burl of purl”): “you’re in front of me. Now you go right into me. You’re in me. / You’re on the other side.”

This interlocking mellows everything out. It’s a wonderful, fresh calm for the speaker, who seems to experience rare silence or settling down at the end of the poem: “I say: tell me it’s never too late for this poem, / and then you go.” And if “you” “goes”—leaving or saying nothing—then, intimately entwined, so does the speaker.

- The Editors

I want to be a tiny mike on your violin

the gem that solves everything. I’d

love to be a Liz Taylor, rising up from the foam of every thing—

the Adriatic in commercials, techno-azure—dripping water n pearls—

plain matchless. I’d gone years in the service of the county

of L, one of its smaller cogs, who gets a windowless office—

worshiping through the frame

affectionately, behind the lens; a pleasant face. Don’t

wish me well. Don’t say you like me. Just slap

me on the ass at the end of the shoot— cause I

have never sat in a giant stiletto-shaped glass!

I’ve never been burned for, through the door, by a doe. At best

I was a dull ache, nostalgia—but don’t mistake me, I don’t pity

myself: I take

my checkered memory to the park on the weekend

and serve straw wine on it

“The Dishwasher’s Picnic,” and

the bigger the wound

the better I am for it.

I dreamed of clear waves like arches

an amusement park in the snow. I was fleeing

from the bad inverted R, & today

I’m asking myself

why am I so useless? Isn’t it your world I’m supposed to be changing?

Maybe if I were Liz, dripping pearl. At that moment, Liz Taylor

must have believed in the balance of culture and matter:

through the spell of pearl sweat & seawater—

O to feel the culture of your desire. To resurrect against your body like that.

To resurrect the body of your desire. This scullery maid is a freaking Messiah!

Even if it takes a very long time

wandering, sitting in the desert

taking in the heat

on the dunes… Until they’re not like unto breasts,

but dunes.

I’m so relieved I’m in love with you.

It’s like being on the other side of a big

old Mississippi

I can think into your face buffeted by video grain. You won’t let me watch

your videos but I’m watching your videos

it’s time I saw everything, plum just out of peach—

I love that your limbs are all smeared in your culture’s amber, history’s peach, this is

another kind of balance

of nurture and culture, the-nature-

of-time-meets-the-culture-of-the-inside, and

it’s the best beauty they ever made, the best one they ever, yet.

When I was five, at a sleepover

my little girlfriend Mojca and I said to each other

we were raping each other, because

we didn’t know a different word. Of course we were grounded.

The chewed Barbies were unspeakable. Is this where all the stupid shame furls from?

Is it that to get into a face

is to get close to a mike

that yells you back into the cavern of you, messes with your Pharaoh mask?

They say Liz & Richard had a pretty tough time

filming Cleopatra; what’s on the tape, though, is

gold.

But I prefer how you look in your wheelchair,

truly. Through the burl of purl, come hither

and you’re in front of me. Now you go right into me. You’re in me.

You’re on the other side, and our backs are touching.

We sleep… We’re the itchiness under the eyelids

and we’re passing over some docks

and the moon’s coming out and there’s

night blooms. It’s not too late

I say: tell me it’s never too late for this poem,

and then you go:

I have not been chosen to work

on the extraterrestrial project, but then

neither has anyone else. All those years

of mastering my private world with

Tetris logic has not paid off, but continues

to perpetuate itself none the less. To please

the remaining earth I will make a small car

that is powered by a sail. I refuse to go

to the Home Depot, so I must re-organize

the old things—I pull out lengths of canvas

from chests of dust and dull but

beautiful glass. There are so many

unique combinations of strange

items and at times it seems like

there is no sailboat car, at other

times it seems like there are many.

The first line of C.S. Ward’s “Tetris Logic” takes on a sad (I am unemployed) or prophetic (I have been chosen to do something more meaningful than work) meaning before being undercut by the humorous line that follows. As a whole, the first sentence is a silly self-lamentation. Our poor speaker who has “not been chosen to work / on the extraterrestrial project” gets over his missed opportunity pretty quickly, realizing that no one else got the job instead of him. One line/shape combines with another line/shape to form a completely different sentence/shape.

The meat of the poem is this concept of Tetris logic—that is, our speaker’s desire to organize his life, to make things fit in their proper place. To win, ultimately, is impossible. Organize, organize, organize, and more oddly shaped bricks keep falling from the sky, ready to mess things up. In the video game, Tetris, the player must manipulate shapes until they fit together. In life, our speaker enacts the game trying to “make a small car / that is powered by a sail.”

The proper noun Home Depot drops in and redefines the speaker as more of an adjuster than maker. Perhaps the surrounding lines also allow Ward to comment on the art of writing poetry itself. Maybe he is making a statement about words and ideas being repurposed rather than created in poems.  Maybe he is establishing himself as a writer who prefers allusions to more classical artifacts (“lengths of canvas / from chests of dust and dull but / beautiful glass”) as opposed to nods to modern-day home improvement specialty retailers.

The biggest take-away from the above-mentioned lines, however, is that our glass chests can be both “dull” and “beautiful.” Similarly, shapes in the game of Tetris can be useful or not useful. Perhaps even more importantly, they might at first appear to be useful when they are not, and vice-versa. If you have played Tetris, if you have lived, then you know what it feels like to have obstructions relentlessly rain down on you. You also know what it feels like when all of the pieces fall into place—feels like cruising around in a sailboat car, wind in your hair.

- The Editors

The early jumps this poem makes—from Leonard Cohen to feng shui, from feng shui to pointing babies, from pointing babies to a cyborg—shadow the speaker’s thoughts about decay, the poem’s most prominent thematic thread. This consideration of decay begins when the speaker playfully imagines “Leonard / Cohen will die a little bit inside.” Her playfulness turns solemn at the “dried flowers” of the following sentence, and her solemnity becomes outright bleakness with the urban decay represented by the “homeless vets on Burnside.” The distinctive complexity of the speaker’s thoughts may make her “uniquely suited for [her] karaoke solo,” but those same thoughts collude to create a sort of one-off, spitfire philosophy on the impermanence of everything.

When this philosophy runs its course though, the speaker shifts into a more personal space. The poem’s title line swells with emotion as a repeated “you, you” enacts the “erratic heartbeat” it surrounds. The repetition in “half-human, half-perfect” and “one built, one born” becomes a plea for the presumed (and impossible) dependability of a “cyborg lover.” The speaker’s late and reluctant hopefulness—“if by some sleight of hand I happen / to save the world”—opens the rest of the poem to a similarly reticent optimism. Maybe we’re meant to focus on the love song in the poem’s early lines. Maybe we should see a certain beauty in the dead flowers. Maybe we’re meant to recognize the openness and innocence of the baby’s pointing. And of course, we’re meant to see all of that, good and bad.

The final lines of the poem, “this is something / that has crossed     my mind,” recapitulate both sides of what the speaker has been getting at the whole time. Firstly, that nothing is permanent. Everything disintegrates (as does this poem, structurally). But secondly, that in the act of writing it down, of committing it to a poem, there is some hope that even if beauty or emotions or ideas won’t last forever, we can try to give them a bit more permanence by committing them to art.

- The Editors

I am uniquely suited for my karaoke solo:

I will sing “I’m Your Man” and Leonard

Cohen will die a little bit inside. I know dried

flowers are bad feng shui; in fact I am versed

in the sounds of decay. Babies, pointing

at the homeless vets on Burnside and saying

“baby,” pointing at piles of sheets on the hotel

laundry carts, saying “baby,” pointing—pointing—

incessantly pointing! A cyborg lover

would be more dependable than you, you

and your erratic heart beat, but you, you

are not that different: half-human, half-perfect

bodies, one built, one born. I’m just looking.

I’m only looking for the chance to storm the stage

and if by some sleight of hand I happen

to save the world, I mean by unhinging—

(trying

not to think about tongue worms or

acid rain today)

the dying

must be stopped           they only lead to

further decay. Well,           this is something

that has crossed     my mind

I picked the wrong hand.

The wooden nickel was under

her tongue. She slapped

my attention away and it

melted into

the sand. When the pain

subsided like a ship

on the horizon I collected

my clothes and my

self and tried my lips

again. She tasted

like winter

through a window.

Could anything solid

be that far away? I only

wanted to claim

the weight of water

behind her snow

and ocean. To pocket

the play of her plié.

Or find a little air

to hold on to.

She never gave me the nickel.

The ship slipped into the scrim.

“Her Art” is her elusiveness. Chambers’ poem opens with the speaker recalling losing at a classic shell game. The “wooden nickel” that the woman was hiding suggests that the game was rigged from the beginning, and the false coin’s hiding place—“under / her tongue”—adds a sense of eroticism to the scene. Sharing a line with “her tongue” is the phrase “She slapped.” With this seemingly nonchalant pairing, Chambers fuses eroticism and violence, pleasure and pain—enacting love’s contradictions.

When the speaker’s attention was slapped away, “it / melted into the sand.” With this shift, the poem itself changes scenes. Cinematically speaking, the camera takes a wide-frame shot of a “ship / on the horizon” before cutting back to the speaker gathering his things and tasting his lips. On them is the taste of the woman from the first scene, “like winter / through a window.” The distant ship presents the poem’s recurrent theme of elusiveness. As does her taste. She is there, but visible only from a distance. She is outside of him.

The speaker wants to “claim” the woman of this poem, but she proves unattainable, immeasurable. More abstract than fluid ounces, she is vast, natural, and complex—“snow / and ocean.” With the singsong alliteration and assonance of “pocket / the play of her plié,” the speaker’s desire to capture the woman’s playfulness is embodied by the poet’s craft. In the end, however, these efforts to harness her prove futile. Contrasting the playful nature created by the long-vowel sounds in the line above are the short vowel sounds and closing consonant sounds of the final line, in which a mysterious woman slips like a ship “into the scrim.”

- The Editors

The verb phrases “ask of” and “to dye” are simple enough alone, but when paired up as in the first three lines of this poem, they make for a jarring and ambiguous opening sentence. Who is doing the asking? The “chiseled experiments”? Is the omelet expected “to dye”? Just as the sentence raises these questions, it introduces us to the poem’s knack for turning disparate elements into highly charged, fluid images. In this case, the confluence of “cookery,” “omelet,” “human hair,” and “dye” sets up an overlapping duality between domesticity and primal beauty, between “lonely” and “lovely,” that extends through the poem.

Another serpentine sentence begins with “Yes, let’s, said the sound of creation’s / birds […]” Like the poem’s opening sentence, these lines create a complex image – one of “creation’s birds” painting and “taking place” on a female figure. Again, it’s tough to put together precisely what the birds are doing, but deciding what’s going on is not the point. Instead the sentence allows less-than-concrete relationships to form between thematically connected words and images. The sentence’s “hem,” “fresco,” and “fleshly room” come together in an evocation of something particular, something that defies paraphrase but points our thoughts and emotions in a general direction.

So what is that general direction? The poem presents a dual image of the woman or women of the poem, hence the poem’s designation as “a relief.” It does so most overtly with the aforementioned couplet “of a lonely woman / of a lovely woman,” changing a single letter and changing the entire sentiment of the line. But it does so most beautifully and subtly in the line “The grass lies down, quietly feral,” where a metaphoric grass disassociates wildness from violence, allowing quiet and femininity its place in nature, in a world populated by “soldiering men who shoot pellets into abdomens.”

Really though, “En Vogue: A Relief” is an enormous poem. It is a poem that lets “Madonna’s Bedtime Story” (which contains the line “Words are useless, especially sentences”) live next to the belittled “Leonardos.” It is a poem that moves from a domestic scene (“a house / with animals playing about on the carpet”) to “a deaf public protracted from tomorrow” that suggest historic horrors through the poem’s evocation of contemporary horrors. It is a poem that fulfills its own portmanteau, “legendmythahistory.”

- The Editors

Endless chiseled experiments in cookery

ask of the omelet made with human hair

to dye tapioca the same shade as caviar.

Wilding women in Mexico pass mirrors unnoticed.

“You shouldn’t need to fake it,” erases in paint

the woman with horse hair hovering

within the hem of her invisible cloak.  She is framed

amid the puns, the names and vases of tequila

by children frequenting a house

with animals playing about on the carpet.

God my guts keep bellowing, she seizes.

Yes, let’s, said the sound of creation’s

birds taking place in the fleshly room found

in the same home of the hem on the skirt

of a female figure painted by birds on the wall

that beheld her fresco.  They came to life on paper

and flew through the window and out.

Their images still go there to express

a woman’s indiscretion.  Shadows

of a lonely woman

of a lovely woman

trap passersby in the Geranium Estate’s highest tower

left to care alone for cageling moons, each to each.

Maternity therein blossoms a landscape

mummified before them.  As a debutante she stood

lounging up at the light that falls behind the lines

soldiering men who shoot pellets into abdomens.

She fashions fallout long before it’s fashionable

to defend.  With photographs of dolls, the Leonardos pose

in their grins.  Their architecture rises, closes in the story

of humans called legendmythahistory.   The cuts crawl

deep with their oldest friends, inebriated

by the flailing ages of death gases.

The grass lies down, quietly feral.

With faces cracked in the fractured pavement,

the future’s flower towered beneath the glass of their feet,

appearing only in reflection’s post-mortem concrete.

Which is to say, the cracks made way for the moon’s silhouette,

her skirts to rustle seed bearers out, the nether regions

of those with no whistle, no war, no house but a home

where they buried it.  The women would look up

from the rapes to cull the pennies called sparrows.

The beasts of midnight held party to the pieces of blasts

apart and sunk them to fallow ground, the small deaths

to wallow in.   The country of birth befriended her face

to say adios as always.  Life, the fear of living, begins in the soil

of a deaf public protracted from tomorrow.

Thus the Madonna’s Bedtime Story

remotely soups with buttery sky pulled in by her shades

from the world’s largest orb in progress.

In the paint off canvas, they stood apart from

les femmes enfants and muses who stir with ladles.  Fin.