Winter 2012

Table of Contents - Vol. VIII, No. 4

 

Poetry    Translations    Fiction    Non-fiction    Reviews   

Shawn Nacona Stroud

 

 

The Lonely One

Widowed four years
now, it would be
easier to grind down
the sphere of Earth
to dust like a furious
wind storm, than it
would be to find
love again. Finally,

I’ve become like the tree
last year’s tornado split
right down the center;
stump of myself,
a broken thing, no-
longer concerned with its
discarded parts that lie
shattered at its feet.

If love was a fire, I would
beg it to burn me. If
love was water I’d pray
that it would drown
me, and if love was
a tornado, I’d stand
rooted watching
as it splits me in two.

 

 

The Poem Baby

Oh it was such
an effort, I pushed
and pushed between
each huff of breath—
taking in the air
like one sucks in chemicals
for this or that high.
I nearly could not get
that damned thing out of me.
Stupid fetus— the labor of you
nearly done me in completely.
Now your infancy screams
up at me from the page
of your body. The only thing
left to do is to raise you.
I shall nurture you— little fuck,
to tuck into dimmed cabinets,
or in the very back crevice
of a closed closet. Slam
my hand down upon your flesh,
but always with love—
just like my mother
taught me.

 

 

Jaundice

Oh God, your red eye peeks
over the eyelid of Earth,
glaring down through your eyelashes
of leaves on the horizon, and
illuminates my yellowed skin.
Your angry eye my sin
cannot escape, even
the blackest of blankets will not
shut your beams out—
every mirror reflects your disapproval
back at me, now your wide—
eyed stare is high
in the open air. I was sick
to death of my pallor, and sex
became the knife I slit my wrists with.
I see you make your eye yellow
to mock me, yes you know as I know
that I am just another suicide, so
you drain my husk slow.

 

© Shawn Nacona Stroud

 

            

Poetry    Translations    Fiction    Non-fiction    Reviews