In general I dont publish poetry in magazines or anthologies. I get in the mood to work in the form, I write fifty or sixty poems in a month or so, then I publish a collection. HWA prez Rocky Wood suggested I submit something to their new e-poetry showcase book. It seemed like a contest of sorts to be chosen by Marge Simon, Jonathan Maberry, and some cat named Peter Salomon. Got bounced for not being right for them after some confusion if the piece was full of glitches or not. Seems they didnt like that some lines were long while others were short. Anyway, I now give it to the court of public opinion. What say you all? Pilgrim Nights Suffolk County Community College shared land with Pilgrim State Psych Hospital. They sat Across a small road from each other, teachers’ cottages beneath cherry blossom trees facing Hundreds of rows of cube windows with ten thousand empty eyes and hollow faces refracted in them. We would Go to class all day and then grab our girls and a few six packs and drive the perimeter of Pilgrim In our trucks to where huge holes had Been clipped in the chain fencing. It was dark as the devil’s eyes back there on the manicured lawns of the mad, slug-like moon sticky above crawling across black construction paper sky the wind strong enough to kill. The ping pong palaces of the maniacal and depressed, the nymphs, the catatonics, the chronic masturbators, in there they sometimes sing, or chant, or scream, or weep loudly enough that all the nearby houses turn on their lights. I imagined parents making a wrong turn off the highway, heading left instead of right, and driving by the enormous housing facilities of The hospital, asking anyone they saw on the walking paths, “Mrs. Hansen’s office? Mrs. Hansen? English Literature?” while nuts in Stolen sweaters and lab coats responded, “Oh yeah, please bear to the left, Mrs. Hansen will be With you shortly.” And we would drive up and down the back roads of night, imagining ourselves behind the glass cubes In a year or two, twenty-one or twenty-two at the oldest, depressed, stressed, wrecked, drunk, addled, hurt, pissed, pressing noses against windows, Hissing, “Mrs. Hansen? Mrs. Hansen? My homework is Done.
Posted on: Tue, 08 Apr 2014 23:50:45 +0000
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