Issue 22: Linda Black
There were bolts
on the floor splinters
struck in spite & then
I began bordered to
inattention doused
in jelly sweet & clear
wrapped in a dish cloth ikle trickle monkey
albumen ring of worms bites
to the ear pickled
egg bit
of a tear
And then I began
on the floor from the floor
through the hatch
preserve & persevere bits
of hair fuzzy
veneer finger wax
pea plea
piddle-de-dee
Missing the route
Seconded
to another family gate
secured latch . . . clatch
bloodletting improper play ping . . . dismay
collude / allude right
old racket ring
fenced unsightly frisked slightly
sick drabs / pacts / defecation
infestation – something
beginning with … m /s / ped
cul-de-sac an extra tray
of victuals virals vitals ( overfed )
for commiseration gratification / subjugation
denial worm-holes drabs / tracts / pacts defects
genitalia (in a practical way)
diffidence delay a ray (x-ray -rating)
of escape confrontation dis-
combobulation
sniff the daisies often
overblown
Referencing the house
Constant
declarations of intent posthumous
gatherings seeking
tension a foot-stool
to reach the latch trap
door bereft of sentry
regularities charities the birth
of a cinder salt malt
cellular activity
nipples undergarments
smatter of fat stock
supply / supplies a lick splat clip spit chap
something needs
moving proving chewing screwing
Linda Black is a poet, visual artist (print-maker, collagist, painter) and dyslexia specialist. She received the 2004-5 Poetry School Scholarship and won the 2006 New Writing Ventures Award for Poetry. The beating of wings (Hearing Eye, 2006) was the PBS Pamphlet Choice for Spring 2007, when she also received an Arts Council Writer's Award. Her fourth collection Slant was published by Shearsman in 2016).
Prose poem collections are Inventory and Root (Shearsman 2008 and 2011). The Son of a Shoemaker (Hearing Eye, 2012) consisting of collaged prose poems based on the early life of Hans Christian Andersen, plus the author’s pen and ink illustrations, was the subject of a Poetry Society exhibition in 2013. She teaches for the Poetry School and is co-editor of Long Poem Magazine.
Copyright © 2019 by Linda Black, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of Copyright law. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author.
