Photo by Brian Michael Barbeito
The wooden dock’s planks groaned beneath the blazing Florida sun. Neal adjusted his sunglasses. He watched as a snowy egret took a step with one of its long twig-thin black legs. It paused, then stretched its swan-like neck and body with the precision of a ballet dancer. Neal tucked a pinch of tobacco between his lower lip and gum. As he folded his sun-freckled arms, the bird took a few quick steps, then lumbered skyward. Continue reading
We’d drink until the stars went out, then scrounge
an hour or two of sleep before our shifts
hopping the subway in from Brooklyn, Queens,
jacked up on NoDoz, Yoohoo, vitamins
eyelids sagging like chintz drapery.
The day kept trying to dawn
and finally gave up, as if to say
today has been cancelled
due to lack of photons.
Nothing but wind and cold all
afternoon in the deepening gray
lashing us poor souls below.
At the hour of not quite twilight
the first flakes come down
slantwise like drunken
debutantes descending
a spiral staircase to
the bargain basement.
They giggle and collapse on
each other, beginning to pile up.
It may be months before we can
scrape away their costume jewelry.
Kurt Luchs has poems published or forthcoming in Into the Void, Antiphon, The American Journal of Poetry and The Sun Magazine. He placed second for the 2019 Fischer Poetry Prize, and won the 2019 Atlanta Review International Poetry Contest. He has written humor for the New Yorker, the Onion and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, as well as writing comedy for television and radio. His books include a humor collection, It’s Funny Until Someone Loses an Eye (Then It’s Really Funny) (2017 Sagging Meniscus Press), and a poetry chapbook, One of These Things Is Not Like the Other (2019 Finishing Line Press). More of his work, both poetry and humor, is at kurtluchs.com.
This poem was first published in Crosswinds Poetry Journal.
up to no good.
how long? how long
will you put up
put out
shoulder blades
heavy sunburnt
gold nugget eyes
*
Before this field blossomed
it was already scented
from fingers side by side
darkening the lines in your palm
the way glowing coals
once filled it with breasts
Everything happens a little more each day.
I’ve had a good time; even my fear has been a twinkling light.
The best place to be is right in the way.
I am sewing my flesh into the costume.
There, in your bed, a warm body bends.
We all like each other in a surprisingly realistic fashion.
A little bit further along to the mass grave and the Tilt-a-Whirl.
Outside, metal bangs against claw.
What a dull needle!
Reach for meaning, step on the sleeping.
Nauseous, a practical girl lay down beside the memorial fountain.
Your date with fate reveals a mutual attraction.
Silence so deep you can hear
that moth combing its antennae.
The trees are asleep on their feet, oblivious.
A single leaf yawns, turns over.
At the hint of a breeze the grass
pulls the bedclothes tighter.
I should mention how the moonlight
looks but I can barely keep my eyes open
so instead I’ll say what it sounds like:
like a dining room in a
long-foreclosed mansion where the finest
china has just been laid out on
the finest tablecloth by the
ghost of the late butler
who nodded off while looking
for the spoons.
The secret joy of the hour
is that anything could happen
and nothing ever does.
Kurt Luchs has poems published or forthcoming in Into the Void, Triggerfish Critical Review, Right Hand Pointing, Roanoke Review, Grey Sparrow Journal, Antiphon, Emrys Journal, and The Sun Magazine, among others, and won the 2017 Bermuda Triangle Poetry Prize. He founded the literary humor site TheBigJewel.com, and has written humor for the New Yorker, the Onion and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, as well as writing comedy for television (Politically Incorrect and the Late Late Show) and radio (American Comedy Network). Sagging Meniscus Press recently published his humor collection, It’s Funny Until Someone Loses an Eye (Then It’s Really Funny), which has been nominated for the Thurber Prize for American Humor. His poetry chapbook, One of These Things Is Not Like the Other, is forthcoming. More of his work, both humor and poetry, can be found at kurtluchs.com.
This poem was first published in Fjords Review.
My sister was the only person I knew who took photos at funerals. The snap and whir of her SLR was hard to ignore as it echoed up the aisle from the back of the church. There was never a flash, only the windows offered light to the mourners, but that sound – I’ll never forget it.
She started with strangers, the white-haired shadows we saw shuffling to the church across the road from our house on Sundays. When a hearse crawled along the street and into the carpark, the driver’s face a sombre mask behind the window, she would throw on the black graduation gown that slid easily over anything she was wearing, and grab the camera. An hour later she would return, sighing with relief, like a burden had been lifted. Continue reading
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