Three Poems

 

Marty Cain

 

 

 

 

from MEADOW OF RUST

 

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I need meat to survive

I need beef and mutton
:

This silver disfigurement

A meadow wrought

:

Its fleshsocket sags

I plier its tooth

:
The wall’s red eye
Is draped with fabric

:

I hung a Pop Warner t-shirt

[I see red flies still]
:
The meadow inside me
[Its corpse-blossom still]
:
The fieldgums broaden
I WAS BORN IN THIS STILL
:
My three layers of teeth

I need meat to live

 

 

 

 

[IN THE MEADOW CEILING]

 

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Inside the meadow

Was only sound

A blue horse spoke

Around a blue tulip

With what blue frequency

The radio had, the local

Dealership piping in

Carbon monoxide

Thru walls THE DEALS

WON'T GET BETTER

THAN THIS
these words

My wingèd vessel

Or else just rain

To clairvoyantly leak

Through grassy plaster

Would u care for another

The worm-end hangs

 

 

 

 

[ESOPHAGOUS]

 

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This rusted meadow

With a ribbon in it

Gold house in the center

With nails protruding

The word was written on a slab of iron:

* * M Y  E N E M I E S  A R E  W E L C O M E

T O  V I S I T  A N D  B L E E D * *

My rust composed essentially

Of hydrated ferric oxide

Moist air attacks

And punctures skin
The blood seeps into wood

And wood seeps into blood

And metal rends the middle

Of a waterfall wound

A boy plays clarinet

Chambers filling with saliva

Hit the bottom / STOP

My foot a chamber

Fucked up w/ tears

I made a poem to invert

The meat that’s inside me

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marty Cain is the author of the book Kids of the Black Hole (Trembling Pillow Press, 2017).  His creative and critical work appears in Fence, Jacket2, Action Yes, Tarpaulin Sky and elsewhere.  He holds an MFA from the University of Mississippi and currently is pursuing a PhD at Cornell where he studies rural poetry communities.  In Ithaca, NY, he co-edits Garden-Door Press and helps organize the Party Fawn Reading Series. 

 

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