The Poetry Of.
Karen Corcoran.................................................. Dabkowski..................................................
Regurgitation
Yesterday
hangs
there
like a coat
on a coat rack
somebody forgot to put
back
into the closet. I like a new day
to feel new- unwrinkled, twinkling
like a glass
that's just been washed, but now and then
a day
like today
just hangs there, helplessly
limp.
Familiar lines and falling creases. Receipt
in the pocket
from
a restaurant
where
the meal's already eaten. Didn't
go down
that well
to begin with, but
there is a list of things already
ingested,
and the test of the day, is how to make it
palatable
once again: put on
a bright coat.
Remembered
left
overs
notwithstanding, here you are
in a day
that feels
too much like yesterday
to be new
but it's
what
you've got.
We Wait For The Thump
Late
at night, when we're all alone
with thoughts
we've
relegated
to the twilight times between reality
and dreaming,
when we
fret
best
in the gloaming, roaming
the ashen halls of fear's own bastard
child, Anxiety, who only shows his wicked face
when nobody's
looking-
no
one's around
to reach out
comfortingly
and pat, and say, "There, there. Most
everything
turns out
fine...." in one of those times
of eely sweat, we wait for the THUMP-
the whump
of Awful
come
to call. The phone's ring, or the test that's
tested
positive, the crack of a branch, the broken glass
pushed
through the window, anything
can
be the
THUMP! and we'll know it
when we hear it
all alone
with
the sound
of the
shattering of worlds
so carefully
built, we swore
they'd
out
last
Time-
who has the deepest
laugh,
and
it sounds like the past
reared up
and
bucking before
it
falls
and out
trumps
us all.
Making Waves
Some
days you reek
and they all
pound
the
cheese-
some days are
fake
outs;
you're
sublime
and they all
pound
the cheese
until
the
hammerhead
in you
becomes quite
deaf
to
everything
but the sticking post
inside
where neither derision
or
glory
matter- when they cannot
know
what
you know
when you know you know the
sun
this
earth, this cursed, fixed place
is a mean
town
always derivative,
and that you know the sound
of blows
keeps what's alive apart
from what
is
dead
and you
hold
these truths
to be self
evident-
like
the burnt
bright
faces of children
at the shore when summer's end
less-
