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Wayward Shadow
Poems
Bruce Holsapple
Copyright © 2013 by Bruce Holsapple
Some of the poems have appeared in the following publications, and the author extends his thanks: House Organ, Malpais Review, lunarosity, Sin Fronteras, Adobe Walls, and Altered Scale. Cover painting: “Magdalena Walk” (2003) Estelle Roberge, oil on panel, 48 inches by 48 inches Copyright © 2013 by Estelle Roberge
ISBN: 978-1-888809-69-5. Library of Congress Control Number: 2013 94990 2 All Rights Reserved. La Alameda Press, 9636 Guadalupe Trail NW, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87114 | www.laalamedapress.com
WAYWARD SHADOW
Wet streets, black snowy tar
cliff spark mud dirty white squeeze
the usual song & dance:
plenty to buy, spend your cash on
All that stiffening
alas, nothing to have
feel unhinged, nowhere to slam
A kind of dying off
you need to prop open your eyes
you need to spread in certain directions
exert yourself, flap flap
denizen trespass beach frequent castle
burnt speech, wayward shadow
ultimately crazy
(who’s fault is that)
there’s no holding back at this point
you’re either rabid or old hat!
this is after all the space age
everything’s sand
more sand
Are you agitated? yes
I feel agitated, good,
what do you expect to do?
Huff & puff & blow this place apart:
rib cage/ lung/ trachea/ vocal cords/
to find one’s tongue
mind your tongue
become sharp-tongued
tongue-tied
tongue-lashed
I’m talking to you!
Everything that you say is true
I’m no good, a wreck, devastated
I need just what you say
to start over
with you on my side!
wet: winged : feet: bleak feathers
the associative leap
“I Can’t Get Started”
what brain shrub of Buffalo
(tongue in cheek)
All the schemes, predictable sequences
“an essentialist yearning for truth”
you almost make me feel
crooked fly erupt trial breeze
I’m swelling inside honk honk
you feel almost human
you almost make me feel human
So long as you read friends
in terms of need, even forms of exchange
you scratch my back, I scratch yours
So long as you’re struggling
you can’t, the Ayatollah
the capitalists, the First National Bank
So long as you don’t like movie stars
Christmas cards or German tanks
so long as you X Y Z
you need turn more than your 360 degrees
get beyond what you bring to the conversation
I mean, get a load of this, at times
there’s no reason to go forward but going forward
no reason to practice but practice itself
(you might as well say there’s no place to go
nothing to keep you motivated
nothing attractive)
feeling dumb, betrayed
wanting love
all that awkward stuff
nothing but straightening that out
driving miles & miles
not to second guess
not to live by expectations
“one check to the next”
checking this, that
fist friendly insist cost risk
you’re the same empty integer
forward & back
nothing to subtract or gain
It’s the way you perceive
not what you believe
that’s what’s got to change
Bruce Holsapple grew up in rural Maine in the 1950s, edited a small press in Portland, Maine in the ’70s, then wandered off (Washington, Vermont, New York, Texas), working a proverbial variety of jobs, before finding his way into central New Mexico. He now lives & works in Magdalena, New Mexico, amidst a bright desert landscape—sandy washes, lunar hills, cactus, juniper, &r steep, stony mountains— scribbling, scribbling.
Please Note: Bruce Holsapple’s VOX Audio catalogue. Vox Audio: Compact Disks of Contemporary Poetry Edited by Bruce Holsapple featuring Mera Wolf, Todd Moore, Lee Sharkey, Margaret Randall, John Macker, Albert Huffstickler, David Benedetti, Gary Brower, Michael Rothenberg, David Meltzer, Jeffrey Lee, David Abel, Burt Hatlen, Gene Frumkin, Joan Logghe, Bobby Byrd, Joe Hayes, Mary Rising Higgins, George Kalamaras, Mary Ann Cain, Larry Goodell, Chico Martin, Bill Sylvester, Craig Dworkin, John Tritica, Dana Wilde, Joseph Somoza, David Empfield, Timothy Wright, Jim Bishop, Nathaniel Tarn, Janet Rodney, Michael Boughn, Wayne Crawford, Mary McGinnis, Anne MacNaughton, Peter Rabbit, Lawrence Welsh, Keith Wilson, Donald Guravich, Joanne Kyger, John Clarke, Charles Keil, Amy Beeder, Stefi Weisburd, V.B. Price, Anne Valley-Fox, Donald Levering, Janine Pommy Vega, Stanley Noyes, Marilyn Stablein, Suzanne Lummis, Jonathan Skinner, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Amalio Madueno, Alvaro Cardona-Hine, Howard McCord and Bruce Holsapple. Please click the VOX Audio banner on the left.