Ice Cream
We are strange. Let’s not dispute the fact.
We will lie in a field of clover
Arms crossed behind our heads
While the sun bathes us with exuberance
And think about how we are like ice cream
And that soon we will be but flakes in the
Bowl of the world, tiny glints of existence
Among the chilling reality that reiterates,
Even once the ingredients have
Been mixed, that we are just sitting
In a bowl, slowly melting,
And doing our best
To be as flavorful as possible.
Box Seat
“What is it with men and breasts,” she asked as
I sat in my green vinyl chair, lifted her gray
T-shirt and took the teat she did not offer
In my mouth. I did not ignore her,
I heard what she said, but my rapture
Kept me from responding with anything
But taking the pink flesh gently between
My teeth. Her eyes showed no disagreement
And permitted me to move along to her other
Teat, leaving its partner wet and swollen,
Dipped in the viscosity of love.
Her question became a diminishing echo
As we ran faster and further from the
Cerebral and toward the cathartic.
Days, even weeks later I will remain suspended
Within myself to watch the performance
With no intermission. I will lean
Forward slightly like a lord in his box seat
To watch the ascension, the climax,
And to resist the denouement.
Oh what beauty it is to be the master
Of your own narrative; life, like a series
Of self-portraits taking different shapes
And shades, moves on as my brush,
My pen moves every day.
But all I have is what I harness
Inside me – the books I have stacked,
The notebooks that I climb to reach
The very thought of you
Remind me of the first time I stumbled
Down the steps of your eyes and landed
Softly upon your lips. And it is there that
I make my pallet, leaving only to climb
The uncertain cliffs of type and spine
To watch at no safe distance
The play in which we are cast.
My Grandfather’s Grandfather
My grandfather’s grandfather
Moves slowly – never arrives,
But constantly moves.
A retired tap dancer –
Lost his touch, but
Never surrendered the shoes.
Of sizable stature,
Looming over the back of
My chair at the dinner table –
A stenographic memory,
A respectable attention to detail.
He will outlive us all,
So will those tap shoes.
He will wander without
Ceasing – unaware of destination.
He will deliver my eulogy.
He will weep, he will maunder.
He will be the one standing by
The graveside thoughtfully shifting
Slow weight in old shoes.
The Silence Long
When I sit in a silence long
Surrounded by the flotsam and jetsam of the day
Coercing the devil to chase his tail
I can float freely through ceilings and rafters
Through ozone and atmosphere
Free of acknowledged direction.
May the silence long never break
May I remain suspended here,
Above, watching through clouds
And shapeless gases
The frolicking of those
Whose silence long never lasts long enough,
Who grab it by the throat
And squeeze from it
The very antithesis of its existence.
Even silence splinters in their grip.
And, of course, the devil
Is no fool.
He will only chase his tail for a moment
And then he will return
Angered and vengeful.
I will be lucky if silence
Is all he takes.
Even now, a cold and bony hand
Wraps around my neck,
Giving me fair warning to wrap up
The final thoughts and put them on paper.
You’ll remember the devil
Was an artist, too.
The tightening grip,
The knuckles bending through
Tiny pads of cartilage and creaking
Like the hinges of an old door
Adjusting to a new humid season.
Lowering slowly – the first hand around the throat.
The second encroaching through the atmosphere
Of personal space.
I accelerate through fog
Through noble gases
Through the thunder and lightning
Noticing only flashes
Until the second closes and silence flees
And I pass through the horizons
Of earth grabbing roots and rocks,
I grab the earth itself
Collecting it under my fingernails
Falling faster through the security my feet
Grew so accustomed to trusting.
The chill of the osseous hands,
Large and interlocking
Around the human frailty of my throat
Keeps me awake through my descent
Into devil knows what
And I accelerate seemingly free of gravity
Until I meet a silence long
Where my tongue is ripped free
Of my body, nailed to a wall
With a name tag placed over it
And I recognize names from pages past.
Stopped, unsettled
By the soundless freefall
My mouth open and bleeding
I feel a heaviness at my side
And I look down to find
A spear in my left hand
And it is dripping with blood.
Sometimes Lacking A Certain Flesh
Sometimes lacking
A certain flesh,
Absent from a particular hymnic derma,
Resting weighted existence
In uncertain earth,
A cellophane ribcage strains
Against the persistence
Of its own tension.
The hint of a question
And earth surrenders to its deeper
Uncertainties. Each dimming depth
Prods its knotted knuckles,
Twisting like roots,
Testing the transparent
Strength of a certain lacking,
Then curling inside
The deceptive warmth
Existence uses as distraction
Like smoke uses fire.
Seth Amos was born in Charleston, South Carolina. He now lives in San Francisco. He received his B.A. in Media Studies from the College of Charleston. His articles and reviews on music, art, and literature have appeared in CHARLIE, Dark Sky Magazine, Charleston Inside/Out, Charleston City Paper, and others.