Four Poems

 

by Bobbi Lurie

 

 

 

 

the skull the names distraught unnamed the deer shaped eyes look but cannot name

 

 

so strange for life to leave behind the

names when story vanishes with one

directionless and what is subject hidden

present moment glowing with the weight

of names soundless round silence and

absolute grove of aloneness all things

without titles

 

 

 

 

The boondocks must have missed me

 

 

For they dragged me back

Insisting everyplace is home

I have lost all hope

I put hydrocodone in my coffee

There is no power behind my walking

My shoes are made of strip malls

I am in the kitchen like a broken plate

My son’s eye cannot see what he’s eating

And so he’s stopped eating

The food is blurry to his eye

I must see a shrink and still I whisper

On the dance floor of death

Loud as the city where a better life is

 

 

 

 

29.  silence now appears, bodies

kept in boxes, nature’s magic

 

causes the body to vanish, mis-

taken for what it was and

 

no recapitulation for what has

left, mostly mistaken about it-

 

self, tired and scorched, the book of life

the body itself being robbed daily

 

of the physical realm, the ghostly stones, their

magnificent dignity, remains unperturbed,

 

whether to float or not: what approaches

is a sound it cannot hear

 

 

 

 

children that aren’t capable

of staying alive what is still alive

 

 

the ancient colored pencil

, a baseball-sized face

it's horrible enough i

face, an abortion one baby

a border

, like standing

i have a scary let me out

i am walking

, i want to change

i'm bitchery you can't pencil

 

i am

completely

an expert

of something

 

i am being a psychological

rather hypocritically

don't ask me

 

jaded

 i take a stand

prayer is still alive

no surprise

i am the wrong

loud

eyes of music

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poems by Bobbi Lurie have appeared in numerous print and online journals including American Poetry Review, New American Writing, Gulf Coast, Big Bridge, diode, Shampoo and Otoliths.  She is the author of three collections: The Book I Never Read, Letter from the Lawn and Grief Suite.