A Boat Made of Water

I’m not sure what I said standing in that lost decade’s doorway looking out at the train headed for San Francisco the rain cutting through the sparks lighting up the bay the sage brush torn out of the today’s news the crumbling cutouts of palm trees pomegranate trees I don’t want to forget what it’s like to die of a broken back broken life broken promises so much for last night’s handouts waiting for who’s next no more guns he said and wept her voice breaking over him and all those hunched in snow huddled around trash fires warming their hands barely able to hold the secrets I can never admit too many would be hurt by what I’ve become the falling sky and always the cold months dropping around me like the mystery itself like the dreams of the dead becoming alive or the scorched shadows limping across the warehouse floor the nightmare scenes sprayed across the leaning wall I can’t forget forgive me for hiding out in the junked Chrysler on blocks in the back yard spiders that never stop building their nests in the brittle hair of dolls and burnt skin help us help us she said why don’t you you’ve got nothing better to do that’s it then another funeral song that says goodbye good luck see you sometime the story of the crooked man the story nobody wanted to hear the story you carry in both hands your hopes piled on the street’s altar wild flowers bright as the summer field you once believed in cluster bombs at your finger tips James back from the war holding his three month old daughter Leslie over the swollen Skagit river to baptize her to cleanse her or set her adrift in a boat made of water wanting to watch her wave like a goddess from the other shore then turning away to lie against a cottonwood cradling her against his chest smiling at what might happen both of them sleeping now whatever it was that taught him just out of reach Katie singing dream a little dream and tell me you’ll miss me it’s the bartender ready to throw me out the third time this week ready to give in to whatever’s left it tastes I can’t resist tastes good god I want more to take me in like the river promised what I made up as beautiful as the loss of feeling as beautiful as we were beautiful

—Submitted on 09/25/2022

The poems of Thomas Brush first appeared in Poetry Northwest in 1970. He has received creative writing grants from the NEA, Washington State Arts Commission, and Artist Trust. His most recently books, from Lynx House Press, are God’s Laughter (2018), Open Heart (2015), and Last Night, winner of the Blue Lynx Prize (2012).

Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left refers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left. 

Grand Canal

We tour the remnants, 
skirt the debris of petrified piles: 

oak and larch dislodged
from centuries-old beds 
of clay. Unmoored 

from silt and soil,
they sweep foundation,

pit and spall marble,
tear stucco, crumble wall.

What’s left of palaces 
lining the edges here, 

where cherubs ornamented ceilings 
and gold clocks kept time? 

Tide pays no homage 
to gilt furniture, fine fabric, 
stone-carved lions. 

It respects no threshold, 
plunders all. 

—Submitted on 09/25/2022

Poems by Anne Kenny have appeared in Equinox, South, Blue Dog Australian Poetry, Contemporary Haibun Online, and other journals. Along with co-authors Judith Dimond, Nicky Gould, Frances Knight, Gillian Moyes, Lyn White, and Vicky Wilson, Kenny’s work appears in Mirror Writing: An Anthology of Poetry by Common Room Poets (Categorical Books, 2009).

Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left refers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left. 

The Dull Mad Fact

And what a divine relief it was when, with a tiny instrument resembling an elf's drumstick, the tender doctor removed from my eyeball the offending black atom! I wonder where that speck is now? The dull, mad fact is that it does exist somewhere.
—Vladimir Nabokov

The dull mad fact: it does exist somewhere:
the speck of soot in young Nabokov’s eye:
a billion-year-old ash of solar flare.

Somewhere a tortured cat screams out its terror,
unable to escape or to know why:			
this dull mad fact: it does exist somewhere.

Somewhere my father stands and grabs for air,
although his heart has beat its last goodbye
to billion-year-old spark of solar flare.

My brother lifeless in intensive care,
his lungs raped by a ventilator; my
dull maddening fact: it does exist somewhere.

My grandma fallen, helpless on the glare
of open radiator, heated by
the billion-year-old ash of solar flare.

Go where you will; say that you cannot bear
to think of it; say that you’d rather die.
The dull mad fact: it does exist somewhere,
lit by some distant planet’s solar flare.

—Submitted on 09/25/2022

Cheryl Caesar is the author of Flatman (independently published, 2020). Cheryl teaches writing at Michigan State University, serves on the board of the Lansing Poetry Club and the Michigan College English Association, and enjoys sketching in charcoal and painting in watercolors.

Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left revers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left. 

On Foldable Habits (& Happenstance)

As a young girl, I’d been taught that habits are just as hard to break as they are to make. Conditioning carefully constructed; habits carefully formed, I worked hard to comply with well-intentioned advice. I gathered and garnered guidance (generously shared). I also assumed admonitions to remain abreast of news were often (if not always) admirable. I subscribed to (and later streamed) updates of all kinds. Headline honchos. Ballpark hits. Local coverage. Acronym soup. ABC & NBC. CNN & ESPN. Prime time in real time. I’d follow updates to remain informed of the day’s most important events. Weather patterns. Traffic tie-ups. Uptown happenings. Downtown happenstance.

As I grew and birthed offspring of my own, I continued to consume well-meaning metrics of care and consumption. Make space for rest. Avoid overdrive. Tame the hive. Dream, don’t stream. The news, it’s contrived. Despite the better judgment of my brood, I was only able to temporarily comply.

I’d been trained to consume news. Habits as hard to break as they are to make. I’d catch up on missed streams while I walked, clothed in star-speckled cotton and rainbow-hued striped socks, as I often did (and do) most days after dark. Under the night sky. I’d scan the galaxies above, my own Galaxy (Samsung) in tow. All fingers nimble. All eyes in focus. Collars carefully folded. I’d trace then order a curious collection of celestial sights. Another habit initiated in my youth, I’d recreate, then iterate (evidence of procreation nowhere in sight). From A to Z — Andromeda. Bear’s Paw. Carina dwarf. Draco dwarf. Hercules A. Zwicky’s Triplet. All while tracking less cosmic combinations and permutations on my Samsung device. Anchor news. Business bets. Rural resets. Intimations. Political Revelations. Heirs and airs on full display. Globes (both print and planetary) spinning.

Old habits persist. Change always something I (we) tend to (universally) resist. Yahoo News consistently confirms my suspicions and my predilections. We’re irregular creatures with regular habits. On a steamy Wednesday (the skies bright with heat). Thunder a distant threat, I was struck by a new live update. Strings of syllables promised far flung fanfare. In rapid-fire succession. Had I blinked, I might have missed the latest star — a phone that bends to all needs. The Samsung Foldable — a formidable development. Feature reach. Spec(tacular), by any stretch of the Milky Way. All bars intact. All backs (metal and mortal) heavy. Rainbows as rare as reunification. Star Wars more timely than ground wars.

I’d been taught that many metals are able to bend without breaking. Force must exceed a material’s stretch for metal to fold. Tasks dependent on hand, heat, or press. I continued to walk, in rubber soles with no brakes. And moonlit skies with no breaks. I counted stars as the stats continued to stream. Mayhem in the night sky. Multi-tasking madness on full display. I thought of live updates of weeks’ past. The war in Ukrainian rages on. An additional thirty-two gunshots fired in Philadelphia earlier that day alone. Temps still climbing. Those feeds now hidden at the bottom of search ladder hits and bits. New stars on the horizon. More signs of change. Not phones but phonetics. All hidden in folds of flesh and fresh pressure to maintain buzz and nests. The foldable phone surely a double (doozy). Grand slams not as common as in days’ past.

Eager for more notable forms of news (old habits persist), I scrolled and noted the Galaxy’s heavy coverage. Not unlike the weather. Of all the galaxies in the universe only a few hit prime-time consumption. Samsung a feature in (and of) the skies. Live updates more a means to promote than inform. To perpetuate and indoctrinate. The event was coined Galaxy Unpacked. The product hyped. A newly coined star. Multi-tasking part of the multi-universe. Marvels and madness persist. Unable to unpack that, my thoughts went to packing. Meteor showers on unpredictable schedules. Galaxy Unpacked carefully choreographed. I counted suitcases and conference seats. Tickets and timestamps. One. Two. Four thousand and thirty-three. And props from A to Z. Air space. Bytes. Chrome. And became consumed by a desire to unpack the titles of all the planets in the Milky Way.

Ultimately, I clicked unsubscribe. Placed my bets on the galaxies above. Tightened my belt. Tucked all wishes not on stats but stars. Traced dots and tracked patterns of Orion and moon shots. Everything I need to know hidden (in plain sight) in the skies. If only old habits didn’t persist so hard.

—Submitted on 09/24/2022

Jen Schneider is the 2022 Poet Laureate of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Her poem have appeared in Spillwords Press, The Write Launch, Fevers of the Mind, and many other journals.

SUBMIT to Flush Left via our SUBMITTABLE site.

Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left revers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left.