Three poems. Three ladies. All Noir.
Enjoy.
Why We Shouldn’t Wait, by Kara Dorris
The homicide detective builds on logic; no logic for this couple exists. He can’t understand drunks & guns, the complication of marriage. He shakes his head, another day, another body bag. Grass clippings cling to his pants, glass litters the ground; he can’t tell dew from crime, blood from dew, brain matter from gravel. That changes in the morning. It can wait.
Read the entire poem here.
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First Lightning, by Alyse Knorr
Big Dipper rises
over the Polygon, lights
of Kurchatov hazing in the distance
like the shadow of a bomb. The arms
of the woman glisten as she washes
her daughter in the sink, cupping
her face with one hand, turning
the blank eyes, the body bent
like a W, toward the candlelight.
Read the entire poem here.
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A Kind of Suffocation, by Jayne Pupek
The tinderbox is a blue Buick. I didn’t mean to leave
the baby in the car. The temperature rose and swallowed the whole
thermometer. The authorities said
she couldn’t be buried with the coffin lid off. Who was I to ask this thing?
Read the entire poem here.
Tagged as:
New Literature Online,
Poetry Noir
Dirty Bits
by Merril Cole
No, it’s not pornography.
The suture hardly holds.
It sags like old glass.
Cut in half,
A smile becomes sellable.
No, not ghosts.
The laundry of the dead,
Listing in the wind.
Stains quiet in early light.
Among the eyeless dolls
And unpriced socks.
Hit with limbo,
The body grows damp.
No, call it a garden,
Where sallow flowers bloom
Like low wattage bulbs.
Merrill Cole is an Assistant Professor at Western Illinois University, where he teaches queer studies, poetry, modernism, and creative writing. His study of modernism was published by Routledge in 2003: The Other Orpheus: A Poetics of Modern Homosexuality. His translation from the German of Anita Berber and Sebastian Droste’s Dances of Vice, Horror, and Ecstasy appears in this summer’s issue of Action, Yes! He has published poems in the U.S., the U.K., and Australia. Currently, he is shopping around a poetry manuscript, Body Parts.
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Like J.D. Salinger
by M.V. Montgomery
I’m not a very social person, it’s true. The idea of speaking before a group
of people no longer fills me with mortal fear, but if I could instead clock in
at a stupid warehouse job and be alone all day with my thoughts, or maybe
not have to think at all, and only now and then take a break to shoot the bull
with one of my co-workers, that’d be sort of cool. My place isn’t too bad—
I’m back far enough from other houses to yell or prance around like a moron,
if I decided to. But it’d be better to walk out the door like the Invisible Man,
totally naked if that’s what you felt like doing, and not have to worry about
running into anyone you were obligated to greet. Maybe you’d see the ocean
instead, or even just a crumby duck pond. My neighbors are always backing
out of driveways, getting and spending like Wordsworth said, or riding around
on mowers like big shot farmers. And utility trucks make pretty constant noise.
So anyway, if you considered lying in a hammock and quietly reading a book,
or communing with nature like one of those dead poets, you’d be out of luck.
M.V. Montgomery has two forthcoming books of poetry, Strange Conveyances and Joshu Holds a Press Conference.
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White
by Rosemary Royston
The sheets in all hotels are white. Name one hotel you’ve stayed in that didn’t have white sheets. It takes a lot of bleach to keep white sheets white. Last night she pulled the pillow with its white case over the top of her head. All he can see when he wakes is the white pillow on her face. Jaw, neck, shoulders, exposed. Then more white. The white of the sheets. Then nightmares of white: white cotton in her mouth. White feathers in her throat. He snatches the pillow off her head. The white light under the blinds wakes her. The white sheets slide away. Her breasts are white pears.
Rosemary Royston lives in northeast Georgia and works as a strategic planner at a small liberal arts college. Her poetry has been published in The Comstock Review, Main Street Rag, and Mom Writer’s Literary Magazine. She holds an MFA in Writing from Spalding University.
Tagged as:
New Literature Online,
Poetry Noir
by William Doreski
The rain today looks more naked
than usual. It bastes the treetops
with id. I dreamt I walked a horse
beside the railroad. The creature shrank
with every step until I stuffed it
into my largest coat pocket.
At home I caught you dissecting
an ordinary garter snake.
Split lengthwise, it resembled
a stretch of the Dead Sea scrolls.
Out of my pocket, the horse
expanded to its natural size
and with its famous Scottish accent
thanked me for the ride. The morning
negates that drama, though.
You hustle the cats to breakfast
and rattle dishes in the sink
to alert me that a new world
has risen from the Atlantic
to replace the dream-world I lived
with ample faith. How can I solve
the simple needs of a landscape
I inhabit barely long enough
to learn how to read its idioms?
The rain kneads the sky till it’s soft
and fluffy. The treetops weep with joy.
You order me to eat breakfast
as soon as the cats have finished,
but I want to run out naked
in the rain, naked as the rain,
and although we have no neighbors
to see, my ripening expression
would surely explain everything.
__________________________________
William Doreski teaches at Keene State College in New Hampshire. His most recent collection of poetry is Waiting for the Angel (2009). He has published three critical studies, including Robert Lowell’s Shifting Colors. His essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in many journals, including Massachusetts Review, Notre Dame Review, The Alembic, New England Quarterly, Harvard Review, Modern Philology, Antioch Review, Natural Bridge.
Tagged as:
Noir,
Poetry,
William Doreski
by Shannon Carson
In love with the idea of love,
the girl with the papier mâchè heart
says sometimes I see only what I want
then adds another chipped plate
to her collection of broken things.
She dreams the vagina dentata
beneath the arrows of the night sky,
imagines cutting off a breast before shaking
out ashes, dry leaves. It’s in here, she says,
holding up a locked box.
She will tell you anything,
give over her assemblage of facts:
the moon is an embryo playing guitar
and all the stars have teeth. She doesn’t
know it’s after midnight — you are trying
to sleep. This rain-bellied girl takes your pillow.
Where is that freshwater pearl? she whispers,
igniting her spleen. Tired of extraordinary things,
she will ask to hold your eyes. She will open
her hands and swallow them whole.
The wooden corner of her room holds a closet
where she keeps all manner of quiet things.
It smells of shoe polish and sandalwood. It casts
the echo of an antique mirror. I know how to take
down my kill, she will tell you, begging to be prey,
holding her breath until she’s covered you with words.
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Shannon Carson’s poems and stories have appeared in The Portland Review, The Suisun Valley Review, The Smoking Poet, and Caffeine Destiny. She’s published an essay in an Oregon anthology and lyrics for a Bay Area jazz musician. Originally from San Francisco, she now lives and works in Portland, Oregon.
Tagged as:
New Literature Online,
Poetry,
Shannon Carson
