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Steve Halle

splatter prophecy


to unpaint on her skater jeans means nakedness. my sick cyclops sings to spite your five-day pain. a critique of reason. i mistrust dichotomies & modern life summaries: three-team trades & the number twenty-four car. it’s no longer give & take but givetake (phenomena in which one appears to be giving in order to take later) & takegive (phenomena in which one thinks one is taking but gives up something unforeseen or unknown). & other systemic models. spend mornings perfecting my machine: spiritbody bodysoul mindsoul soulspirit etc. for repeated revolutions concentrics of task. recap @ 11. my crew chief says i’m in last place but i think he thinks winning. & so i think winning. to trust his divinations like the drone bee trusts the queen? the cyclops the skater & my third eye have hands on the planchette. it moves & spells in an imaginary grammar readable with telescope & ephemera & a wait-a-second russian doll mind. to interpret is to drone. it’s all staves from hear. FEAR WATER FEAR FIRE FEAR EARTH FEAR AIR. i write this locked in a closet wearing a HAZMAT suit bright yellow like her skater hair is her self-esteem in love with her own skinned knees.
​

Contrition in the Abode of the Word

                                          
List me a sinner.

That I lost my center,
fighting the word.

I declined to write
of the fidgeting world.

That dreams clash
& are shattered—
& slash their prices.
Nobody buys.
All are too busy,
buoyed by the promise
of Paradise
& the illusion of its value
once possessed.

Do not move Paradise,
without first updating the map.

Let a wino speak
& say, “That I tried to make
a paradiso terrestre,
but vomited instead.”

A dream clipped
& shat upon
in the nest—
that is paradise.
It has nowhere
to fly to & no
pretense of beauty.

I have tried to write to Paradise:
          Dear Paradise,
          Do not move or how
          shall I find you
?

That letter lingers,
draft unsent.
​
Let the Gods forgive
what I lied to wreck--
Hell, it’s their job.

Let the windows speak
to the wind, hollering,
“IN HERE PARADISE IS ON SALE!”

What have I made?
An innocent pear?
Whither?
Arrest me.
When my Fridays blacken,
I will jostle & trample
to gain admittance
to Paradise, an agora where
I must transcend the limits
of my capacity to spend.

Let the widows,
their voices long declined,
speak of the gone men,
& remember them to their depleted
disposable incomes.

Let the sinners who outlive me,
apologize for what
I’ve bought & not made.

Let the wind speak.
It has earned its chance
to filibuster.

Let the Gods ask forgiveness
of those I love
in Paradise.
​

To sacrifice to a spirit not one’s own


is flattery perfect o lynx perfect or lotus
willward unfolding, then, these winds.
my smoke hole, my mouth, flatters
none other than my spittle. o my shovel!  

the directionless geese teem with people,
the waves with phytoplankton,
and language points the direction
of one’s will to explication. south

sacrifice is flattery. i name it not Athena
. then to be more beautiful strung
between what milk has soured,
though, in serving just warm in service

to memory of mind. seven languages
stir the borscht and wrestle the radish
and butternut squash. anything can be
aioli in the death cells. anything

can be language you may have eaten.
lynx meat and mortars the flame-
seared blood of creatures in mouth-
corners, meat scorched long enough

to be terrified of earth, of air, of water
i breathe, breathe and drown
a life in fire a while anyways. a sparrow
subdues attention dross as embers

in flickers that fade into feathers.
a postmodern surface of wingflaps,
bring me ruin four consecutive Thursdays
until collapse and water in streets.

a language of damp threatens upholstery,
basements, papers sodden and clothes.
inundated with the tragedy, a night terror
blows into morning the moorings
 
of our basement sea-cradle language,
as it rocks, invents, departs like love
in which as you take and take in, it eludes
the palate of desire’s fancy and possession.

between the nose and velveteen tannin,
dollars appear. pay and the water
pumps away: plughole, yard, spider,
catfish, chrysanthemum. the sewer under

the moon knots the ocean takes millennial
language to explain away and blur midnights
of lunar haze. sublunar me left to forecast
ruin and cast lots. the fool can rest trusting

mistrust: a cage he keeps. each trained hunting
dog knows the taste of the feather of fowl.
minutes before the death they nourish
the chase. this same will heals the eyes beyond

surgery, beyond the salve made with the prophet’s
saliva as it pours from gutters of summer.




​
--
Steve Halle is the author of the poetry collection Map of the Hydrogen World and the chapbook Cessation Covers. He edits the online poetry journal Seven Corners (7C) and is the founding director of Co.Im.Press. He is the assistant director of the English Department’s Publications Unit at Illinois State University

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  • Home
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  • Issue #27 Spring 2024
    • Issue #27 Art Spring 2024 >
      • Kristina Erny Spring 2024
      • Luiza Maia Spring 2024
      • Christy Lee Rogers Spring 2024
      • Erika Lynet Salvador Spring 2024
      • Marsha Solomon Spring 2024
    • Issue #27 Poetry Spring 2024 >
      • Terry Belew Spring 2024
      • Dustin Brookshire​ & Diamond Forde Spring 2024 Spring 2024
      • Dustin Brookshire​ & Caridad Moro-Gronlier Spring 2024 Spring 2024
      • Charlie Coleman Spring 2024
      • Isabelle Doyle Spring 2024
      • Reyzl Grace Spring 2024
      • Kelly Gray Spring 2024
      • Meredith Herndon Spring 2024
      • Mina Khan Spring 2024
      • Anoushka Kumar Spring 2024
      • Cate Latimer Spring 2024
      • BEE LB Spring 2024
      • Grace Marie Liu​ Spring 2024
      • Sarah Mills Spring 2024
      • Faisal Mohyuddin 2024
      • Marcus Myers Spring 2024
      • Mike Puican Spring 2024
      • Sarah Sorensen Spring 2024
      • Lynne Thompson Spring 2024
      • Natalie Tombasco Spring 2024
      • Alexandra van de Kamp Spring 2024
      • Donna Vorreyer Spring 2024
    • Fiction #27 Spring 2024 >
      • Bryan Betancur Spring 2024
      • Karen George Spring 2024
      • Raja'a Khalid Spring 2024
      • Riley Manning Spring 2024
      • Adina Polatsek Spring 2024
      • Beth Sherman Spring 2024
    • Nonfiction #27 Spring 2024 >
      • Liza Olson Spring 2024
  • Issue #28 Fall 2024
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      • Eric Calloway Fall 2024
      • Matthew Fertel Fall 2024
      • JooLee Kang Fall 2024
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      • Sean Layh Fall 2024
    • Issue #28 Poetry Fall 2024 >
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  • Issue #29 Spring 2025
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      • Irina Greciuhina Spring 2025
      • Jesse Howard Spring 2025
      • Paul Simmons Spring 2025
      • Marsha Solomon Spring 2025
      • Elzbieta Zdunek Spring 2025
      • Na Yoon Amelia Cha-Ryu Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Poetry Spring 2025 >
      • Deborah Bacharach Spring 2025
      • Diego Báez Spring 2025
      • Jaswinder Bolina Spring 2025
      • ​Ash Bowen Spring 2025
      • Christian J. Collier Spring 2025
      • ​Shou Jie Eng Spring 2025
      • Sara Fitzpatrick Spring 2025
      • Matthew Gilbert Spring 2025
      • Tammy C. Greenwood Spring 2025
      • Alejandra Hernández ​Spring 2025
      • Ben Kline ​Spring 2025
      • ​David Moolten Spring 2025
      • ​Tamer Mostafa Spring 2025
      • ​Rongfei Mu Spring 2025
      • Cynthia Neely Spring 2025
      • Pablo Otavalo Spring 2025
      • ​Bleah Patterson Spring 2025
      • ​M.A. Scott Spring 2025
      • ​Liam Strong ​ Spring 2025
      • Alexandra van de Kamp Spring 2025
      • ​Cassandra Whitaker Spring 2025
      • Angelique Zobitz Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Fiction Spring 2025 >
      • Vanessa Blakeslee Spring 2025
      • K. J. Coyle Spring 2025
      • Meredith MacLeod Davidson Spring 2025
      • Jessica Mosher Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Nonfiction Spring 2025 >
      • JM Huscher Spring 2025
      • Qurrat ul Ain Raza Abbas Spring 2025