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8/27/2014

Truth-Telling

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Picture
preoccupied by this bird
knocking on my occipital
  I lie
about the man
squatting on the windowsill
  hammerhead gargoyle
his cranial cavity is a chasm
not a canyon
  a silkworm tunneled therein
the man arrived
on a saucer
not in the Ming vase
  delft might have inked him
this is not an exercise
in retroflexion
  I am not inverted

There is too much truth-
telling
  I lie
about rococo and the ceiling
of the Bavarian castle
  Bardolino confessional & a priest
  named Theo
the flaking wall of the cellar
and my grandfather
and his minions
  a chop shop a hog Harley and Chapstick
about mixing turmeric
and turpentine for
that savory stew
I fed you
  saliva and phlegm-gobs, as it happens

This bird is an augur
presaging a Jungian carnival
bowling pins gyre
horses say Mother
a dog laps
another dog
round a NASCAR track
a rolled up tongue
a home-rolled cigarette
Are you on board
  clipped in
  pinned to styrofoam?
Did you build the pop can pyramid
on the floor of the Pacific?
  If you
  ask me
  I will lie

There's no two ways
about it
I hang spiraling
like a mobile
   driftwood fossil foil
   aluminum rabbit ear antennae
   a ribcage in a glass case
a cake box
without a cake
   now you see
Do you believe?


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8/22/2014

August 22nd, 2014

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Picture

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8/20/2014

Wednesdays

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Picture
Wednesdays

on Wednesdays
we laid rough stones 
along the dry-lipped crinkled edges 
of his porch 

on Wednesdays
he looked away you swiped my face
your tawdry hanky
Assam-stained
we wrung each other out

on Wednesdays
I watched his gray-jacket body
shoulders like a hook
I counted his steps in the drive
passenger door swung shut
like a red rubber stamp

on Wednesdays
I retired to the wicker rocker
he left behind trying to decide
what was lonelier, an empty chair
or a single chopstick

on Wednesdays
you came from behind
covered my eyes surprise surprise
I missed him before his car was
out of sight 

Wednesdays

Written in collaboration with Brendan Bonsack (www.brendanbonsack.com)

By Brendan Bonsack and Reka Jellema
August 2014

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8/13/2014

Hunkered

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Picture
we hunkered down
in the unholy holes behind newsprint
sleeves rolled all Wall Street
all auto mechanic
all greased & slicked
we hack-sawed concrete sidestepped knapsacks
asleep on park benches
we fouled pinafores spoke in pinpricks
pacifiers planted in pie-holes
we watched you evanesce with panache
we watched cocked and maned we watched
one thumb with silvery polish roll into a ditch
tin can cocktail weenie
someone said
pickled punks
someone said
boiled pigs feet
we hunkered down in a moshpit of unclaimed legs
& crumpled bits
labia in pubic nests
ear lobe potato chips
a wad of chewed bubble gum
smeared lips
the color red
no one will ever read this
someone said
turn it off
your boy spilled Tinker Toys
dropped an f-bomb
we eye-rolled handed off
the remote

we tuned in
we hunkered down -- hamboned the gig
riffed & licked
cat-gutted it
chopped chords heads rolled spurt spurt
a kneecap snapped like a forest twig
we jukeboxed -- hair stiff on her cheek
an eye adrift sky-ward as-if
oh heavens above
someone said
while the doc dug earth from a socket with a toothpick
we hunkered down dirt-nailed hammered-home
wanted something to stick
in our hole
stop-gap
what we did to fill ourselves
what we did
carefully tread
missed our femurs our metatarsals
we missed our spleens our tongues our tonsils
we off-handed those harelipped kids
those kids flew into the vast indifference
those kids landed piecemeal
the Barbies we threw splayed
and indecent

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8/6/2014

O Stone

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Picture
O stone
I hold you
dear

Wrap round your
Rough gray

Place my mouth
On your mouth

The gods did not know of
The scab of your soul

Of tenderness tendered
A circle of moon

Its powder a tinder
Liquid and soft
And lain upon the flint

Like a palm that says
Be still

Written with Brendan Bonsack

By Reka Jellema and Brendan Bonsack
July 2014





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8/3/2014

I Want My Body Back

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Picture

I want my body back though
Flesh through buttons whitely pressed
Ball sacks dangled,
Wrung out tenderized flaps
A place you used to cup, caress
All jowls and flues
Did you trace the slender
Piccolo play the notes that made me
Man? My Buddha belly
Masters me, a dubious
Center of gravity
And, yes, I will
Take another
Thank-you-very-much-indeed
Ice cream / Tom Collins / Porterhouse
A little something sweet,
Spuds all done up, fry-bread
Fried in bacon grease
Slops for a pig my belly
Slops over my belt -- did I ever tell you
About the day my
Heart stopped?


By Reka Jellema
July 2014

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8/2/2014

Ward

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Picture
lost my way
by a tire swing
lost at an aquarium
thought a glass was candy
murky mossy
lost the thing
a rope
a room
a pill
a ward
lost me



By Reka Jellema
August 2014

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8/1/2014

August 01st, 2014

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Picture
the son i never wanted
wants his body back
calls for a name a hand a heat grate
two walls and a basket
of books and the eyes of
a wicker chair to kaleidoscope
when you stare

the son I never wanted
wants a marble named Mario
that train set mom gave away
the lost gray waves of the tug boat
the steely chop-chop-chop
cold wavy-waves of the great lake chopping
at the chill-blink of sky

the wave before the wave after
and the wave to come
the wave
upon which he head-butted
the shore --

O little one
for the smoothed green stone
and the blue beach-glass prize
for every Leland stone for every
pinprick fossil for the footsucking
edge-of-the-surf sand-suck

it was nothing

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7/29/2014

July 29th, 2014

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Picture
A view
For you. Out there
It burns. The whole world
browns, curls
into a claw
An old oak leaf
clings
to her tree

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7/28/2014

July 28th, 2014

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Picture
Silvery confetti
loosed from on high, lacing
Scotch pines
We held our breath, hushed
by winter white
The dog licked snow
from the sky

Picture

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