November 1-7, 2004: Susan Culver and L.A. Seidensticker

Susan Culver and L.A Seidensticker

BECOME A POET OF THE WEEK
click here for submission guidelines

Bio (auto)

Susan lives in rural western Colorado, and is the editor of Lily –http://freewebs.com/lilylitreview Her poetry has been published in The Pedestal Magazine, Erosha, Paumanok Review, Tryst, Wicked Alice and Rose & Thorn.

The following work is Copyright © 2004, and owned by Susan Culver and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

Inscription on a Postcard #2 This is life: bound to soil, hushed with dust for it carries no echoes Donít forget what I told you about the Phoenix: itís all myth Nothing rises from ashes but ashes,  and only when blown In this canyon that was the hope of us,  I have warmed my belly on a fading spot of sun, have slithered beyond comprehension, called your name thrice: wind, wind, wind Don’t forget me I do not write to hear my own voice. Inscription on a Postcard #5 This is a garden girl, the fruit of her efforts grown up past her ankles, flowers as far as the eye can see, but the girl is not me and the truth is, we keep getting farther from the truth: the world is a field of girls,  winter wilted, bird-pecked In summer,  you dreamt you could pick them,  but now you grow content with dreaming from the distance of the sky Truth is, I have lost myself in this city,  am getting used to darkness, to saving myself from freezing, but I am still waiting for you to tell me which way is up, still searching for a reason to believe you I’m scared you’ll simply settle for a stranger with my name. You First If someone would have told us you were going to don your cardboard armor,  saddle up the broom, ride in at the closing strains of my happily ever after; that we’d hide in the woods each morning,  make Indian burns on our vulnerabilities; that love only had to be claimed by the one who cried uncle,  I would have replied as if it were a question: False And if they would have told us later that we would spin the bottle broken; spend months discovering the heart and if it made a good gamepiece for chicken; that the cop and the robber would both find themselves at the edge of the cliff when the world yelled double dare,  you would have narrowed your eyes, smiled,  would have turned to me and said: You first.

Great Uncles Great uncles take you where the earth falls off They bring you with your sack of dry bread to the edge of the lagoon Black swans rock slowly past necks inclined above chambered, silver hearts They breast the grassy verge but cannot lift and fly through terracotta arches of the Palace of Fine Arts to the cold, deep bay takes no more than two breaths, Three wingbeats over water to the Golden Gate The Paciific shudders and streams as the sun comes into it Great uncles do not speak They carry a stick It is for walking in the forests of the park, and in case of dogs they do not love Great uncles knew your grandmother when she was just a girl and green They stood with their sticks and looked out over the mercury waters as the boys sailed gone to war.  Leaving, Left Last leaves, red leaves stiff and risen in a last pull windward towards tomorrow, where the sun winters; the red leaves fall, press fast to windshields, sidewalks, a storm-streaked poster promoting a fourth rate circus comes with its too many acrobats, its lame baboon, and one of the men exposes himself to a girl who’s seen it all before She says, my daddy’s got a better one, cowboy Cowboy: he surely wasn’t They carried him off and were unkindly to him and he asked what’s the deal, it’s ok her old man She was all over me, sir, she was on me; and Jesus if it isn’t sad to be left behind in a town in the rain, the trees bare, and haughty old women in narrow houses snap the door closed right in your face; nothing to watch but the rain and the sneaking red leaves, leave their mark like any other hard slap to a smooth surface. Bread on Water A white crane at the river bank; extended slip-spined S, half-dozed A breeze shakes out the slack mop of pampas grass; in another life such grasses of webbed light, gathered up in a dark parlor, held upright by an old Moroccan umbrella stand God bless the heathens, too, their bloody tracks along rocky inclines of the hills that they will die upon Here briny marsh lands cannot sustain the heaviness of man Swamps favor impulsive naps, long slow strainings as of tea through oak leaves, minnows through mud and rootlets They say good women put to bad use, when they were weighted, slipped over the gunnels into the sloughs, decades later lay along muddy bottoms like brides among white remnants of their bridal gowns White, soda-risen biscuits are apt to be something you fail to much value as a child, having never heard praise of crumb or loaf In late middle age, unexpectedly comfortable with your failures and your belly you begin to savor bread.