Poem of the Week: March 23rd, 2014

Our poem of the week is by Jeanine Deibel and comes from vol 1, issue 2 of burntdistrict. Jeanine is an MFA Candidate in Poetry at NMSU where she teaches Creative Writing and works as Managing Editor for Puerto del Sol. For more information, visit: jeaninedeibel.weebly.com.

from SPYRE
By Jeanine Deibel

I might pretend that the ladies’ curvature is my grab-at
go-to place for kicks, like I don’t cup myself and gyrate to
“Beat It” above the sanctuary all night long, but let’s face it,
I’m self-sufficient. I mean, have you watched a baseball
game? That shit is broadcasted globally. What are we really
trying to hide? Not baseball players nuttin their mittens.
But MJ – you can’t dance while you do it. Not in public.
Then it’s a desecration of a sacred act. Every man
instinctually must move three clicks away from you. Where
are your bats, man? You need a fucking decoy, numero uno.
That’s what got MJ killed, that or diet Pepsi, I’m still up
in the air on that.

Poem of the Week: March 16th, 2014

Our poem of the week is Richard Robbins’s “The Venice Boardwalk” from our first issue of burntdistrict. Richard has published five books of poems including The Untested Hand, Radioactive City, and Other Americas. He currently directs the creative writing program and Good Thunder Reading Series at Minnesota State University, Mankato.

THE VENICE BOARDWALK
By Richard Robbins

Secret Father waits
until she’s twenty to break
the news. Skateboarders

weave around them in a roil.
He’d been the one to buy her

coffee and a roll,
to talk long in the wave-churned
haze about common

friends or the architecture
of forgiving. She saw whole

desperate blocks flattened
to sand. He a tsunami
that might unhinge them

if they let it, all the grief
one grief beneath that blue noise.

Poem of the Week: March 10th, 2014

Our poem of the week, “Balloon,” is by Dan Pinkerton. He lives in Des Moines, Iowa and his poems have appeared in Boston Review, Sonora Review, Indiana Review, and Hayden’s Ferry Review. More of his work can also be found in the latest issue of burntdistrict, volume 2, issue 2.

BALLOON
By Dan Pinkerton

He grew tired of its whispered demands,
the hot soggy air on his neck, so he decided
to fill it with the voices of those who yelled

at children and dogs. In his garage he kept
a hose and vacuum seal for such tasks.
The balloon now resembled a snared animal

puckered at one end, tight pink belly heaving
with labored breaths. Lately he found
he’d been yelling at librarians and doormen.

His library privileges had been revoked.
He dreamt of opening a hatch and watching
the balloon drift skyward, carrying with it

the weight of this daily clamor. It would
scrape against the atmosphere as shards of ozone
flaked away, and he would stand in his yard

beneath the ghostly bare branches of the sycamore,
summoning first the silver-flecked winds, then the rains
that would fall like canvas over empty pianos.