On the themes of Life Cycle and Bras
Where we are and where we might go
sometimes they shovel sand in here, pick it up
with flathead shovels and empty ‘em over your
shoulders so the heat and the grit mix in good
sometimes you can reach the window and feel
winter out there, the cold wet palm against the
window almost feels real and numb, so sweetly
sometimes when you’re knotted up in a blanket
the only salve is a leg sticking out into the room
and it lowers you to an elevator sub-basement
where you can get right again
if you can get right again
sometimes you can hear the clock on the other
side of the wall—torpedo, fire one—torpedo, fire
two—other times you get so alone that you will
compromise
they’ll expect this from time to time
and you must appease, or not;
you can always die, too
sometimes you will think about telling the others
that you’d like to leap through the glass window
or smother yourself in the seething piles of sand
sometimes you even imagine you can free your
arms to load a gun so you can put a bullet into
your skull and pull the light-bulb chain to dark
don’t mention these things
just plan them, rely on them,
even if you know they’ll come too late
When Thunder Follows the Light
Elwood called from a strip club payphone
and said she broke club rules and gave
me her phone number, that she’d
pulled the scrap of paper with her number
from her tasseled green-sequined bra
and slipped it into his mouth, that she’d
be off by 2 a.m., and I took the address
driving across Schenectady at midnight
is as easy as closing your eyes and waiting
for the rain to fall in spring, and when
she asked me why I followed a man like
Elwood, I told her that he was immortal
“I write about people, those people,
the ones who live just beyond the fringe
and I follow them to try and see where
the drop-off is, where the ledge resides”
she asked if by writing about them, if that
is what makes them immortal, but no
it isn’t the writing that makes anyone
what they are, it’s just that some people
are lightning strikes in the midnight of life
and the poems are just the thunderclaps
that come afterward, the sudden shadows
that flicker and fade into nothingness
and once I was out of singles, fives,
and tens, she moved on and Elwood was
already gone with his woman into the night,
a Puerto Rican dancer who called him
Jesus when she thrust herself against
him in the dull blue neon fog of the club
I walked back to my car and saw shadows
in the back seats of some BMWs and Hondas
while the streetlights up and down Central Ave.
dimmed out and sparked to life at random,
seemingly at random, the whole drive home
Author Biography
James H Duncan resides in New York City and is the founding editor of Hobo Camp Review, a literary press dedicated to the traveling word. His poetry and short stories have found homes in numerous publications, including Pulp Modern, Apt, Red Fez, Poetry Salzburg Review, Underground Voices, and Gutter Eloquence Magazine. More at http://jameshduncan.blogspot.com.