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Full, From the Grave by Craig Kirchner The limo,
gray leather seats, typical soft ride seemed to be driving itself. A cool, hushed
feeling of finality and freedom at about 50 per, willing without manipulating, despite
the new rain, the driver barely touching the wheel. Occasionally
rubbing the small container in his right pant pocket, Colton ponders Coppola’s
Count crossing the ocean, with his boxes of native soil, the ship on autopilot,
sailing itself to the new land, the next red light. An Altoids tin,
what’s that, three Tbsps. maybe? Alyson sitting next to Colton in her
full-length Victorian and black lipstick, tells him she saw him spoon the dirt
and that she collects clipped nails in a glass case. She keeps it in her room, and frequently
contributes, its major characteristic of course, it is dead, cut from life. Colton’s canister speaks in unfamiliar tones, never feels quite
the same each time he touches it. Only an hour old, it has become the charm, his luck piece,
the heirloom he’ll never lose, the collection he never had, the never handed-off
inheritance that evolves against his leg, and subtly intimates it will eventually grow
something if given a chance, perhaps help with his sleep. not even Baudelaire by Craig Kirchner I’m sitting with The Flowers of
Evil, in my favorite chair, best cognac, a small
reading-lamp the only light in an otherwise, dark room. Early evening
relaxation— this is as good as it gets. Back from a jog, you silently appear, hip-cocked
in the doorway, dirty blonde shook forward, framing
Lopez lips in an incredible ensemble of white
cotton panties and gym socks. I tilt the
shade like a spotlight, thinking maybe a little bump & grind, instead,
you drop to your knees— your reality
more intense than one could possibly write— ever so
lewdly crawls across the Persian rug, gives even
the goldfish gooseflesh, and a hard-on. No one
could make you up, not even Baudelaire.
Dream
Doctor by Craig Kirchner Silence
between the bedclothes on a quiet
afternoon, has a rose reverence, a
calming pace, a new tranquility,
defined by space. The bed is sturdy, four
legs solid on the floor, mega-stones
set just so by Ancients, pushed under
the window with a view of the lake. The geese like June Taylor dancers all turn at once, choreographed in Vs, and me pondering nefarious formations, to a deep lazy sleep. Grasping
pointlessly at reeds and mud as
the lake drains through an hourglass funnel, falling
to dust, dirt, and deep dimensions
below the bed, where worker ants are sticking to the plan, stacking symmetrically, motivated to give time space and space time in a prime meridian castle for their Queen. The
Dream Interpreter arrives with a clipboard, measuring
latitude and longitude, describing
taste as color, intuition as liquid and
pain in geometric shapes. REM eyes dot anew tunnels of archeology and Druids. Geese and Jurassic antennae stay busy, anticipating his monthly visit, through circles of pink quilt, mounds, sneezes, and Stonehenge.
Neon
poem by Craig
Kirchner Throw away
your mascara, mousse and underwear. Wear these lines for a week, just
one week, not a long time. Let
the words mold your face, drape
your shoulders, your delicate breasts. Let the lyric infuse your dreams, scent your pillows, press
your thighs with invisible weight. At the
end of the week if these Emperor’s clothes are your neon poem, call me. I’ll be here on hold, won’t
have eaten but won’t rewrite. You
are new ink that will not dry.
Evening alone by Craig Kirchner It was a third-floor apartment, with patio doors off the living room to a porch
looking out onto a 4-lane, busy
with traffic, Moravia Road. Evening’s
gray was giving an edge, to
the exiting orange-glow of the day that
was leaving through those doors, at
about the same pace the Sunshine Acid I’d
put on my tongue a half hour ago, was
coming-on. In harmony with this transition I left the
lights off, a bit anxious, synapses
popping behind wet eyes, that when the total dark of night controlled
the room I would be peaking
in its grasp. This tic was replaced by a dawning sense
of warm euphoria as
the room settled into a soft humid glow and Eleanor Rigby’s scraping bows of violins were totally
liquid within me. I
was as alone with its pulsing, as
Father Mackenzie and
the other lonely people. The darkness, now part of my psyche, gave a nocturnal
life to the walls, blooming
with energy, textured
like fog— even
the nap of my flannel pants was
quivering with a warmth, and
life of its own. I opened the
curtains, as
the beige street globes came on, adding
color and definition to
the traffic that flowed down
roads connecting the
parking lot below, to the planet, trailers
of headlights branching out in
all directions to everything. Turning back
to the sofa I
felt a squash under foot, as
the large-leafed fern let
out a howl of psychedelic mishap, bleeding
green ooze under my now heavy, traumatized
Cole Haan suedes.
Larry, Moe, and me by Craig
Kirchner Panhandlers in Ocean City awaiting draft
physicals on Ninth Street— never really owing what we didn’t have, and what else is
there. Attic
rooms on Third St., cold shower stall in the yard, 2x4’s of worn
white paint and body odor. We stole cigarettes from Ding Bell’s and wine money
from pocketbooks. Moe surfed the big board, never tilted
pinball and cheated at cards. Tuesdays Larry shagged the landlady. She lived on the
first floor and had a TV. We watched Sirhan and Westmoreland while her tits
bounced. She
had a freckled throat, and feverish flush— her sofa smelled
of coconut and cum. Mondays and Wednesdays I’d meet Muriel
after her shift at Phillips Crab House. She was slightly plump, with underaged baby fat, peachy locomotive skin and long straight blonde hair full of August sun. She loved dry-humping, and smelled like piecrust and Old Bay. Thursdays
the Steakhouse had all you could eat. Weekends
were parties in the dunes. We
were barefoot and free, like
wind-tossed kites above the beach, indifferent,
invincible but
fragile if touched, denying
such wreckage falling to the sand, the
summer was ours and
there really was nothing else.
First at Pimlico by
Craig Kirchner She
was sitting at the counter in the Diner, black bob,
I think they call it; thin, reminded me
of Popeye’s Olive Oyl. I was sitting in
front of the window, at one of those tables wide
enough for a coffee and an elbow. We
made eye contact and she smiled, got up, walked
to my table, opened her
raincoat to black lace underwear, and thigh-high
black boots. She was built better than
Olive. “We need to get to
the track.” I paid for the
coffee, put my arm around her closing
the coat, and ushered her to the parking lot. “We
need to make the first race.” “I’ve
never gotten this response to the raincoat thing, it’s
refreshing, but I don’t drive. Lost my
license, so I sold the car.” “Do you
have a phone? Good, call a cab. I dreamt that
the winner of the first race pays $22.60.” “Do
you always take your dreams so seriously?” “No,
never actually. But in this dream, you…. you, came up
to me,
opened your raincoat to that
outfit, and told me you loved horses but didn’t
drive.”
4 A.M. by
Craig Kirchner I’m sitting alone at 4 A.M. drinking a delicious Pinot, and attempting, pretending, here at the desk, to write something interesting or perhaps entertaining. Since nothing is
coming, I suppose instead, that I’m
the most expensive bottle of Pinot
Noir, let’s say in Florida, and
I’m given the choice of whom I will be consumed by. Add to that the
lucky selectant, doesn’t
necessarily need to be someone who can
afford me, and the musings
jump to more important criteria. It should be someone who will savor my essence, and appreciate my intensity and vintage. Someone whose deft handling, and patient swirling with the tongue will make this the experience of a lifetime. It will need to be
someone who doesn’t hate, someone
empathetic, a lover of animals and children, all
living things. Sophisticated, enough to look
good in the process, and no anxiety.
Anxiety is bad for digestion. They should be interesting and entertaining, They should be capable of conveying the experience to
others, the majesty of the moment, capable of writing it down at 4 A.M., if that is what becomes necessary.
Leap Year by
Craig Kirchner Time, imprisoned, like the mouse, trying to run with the perfect rhythm to keep up with the wheel. No one is exactly
sure when he was encaged, locked into
calendars and clocks for a sentence of years,
decades, eons. He was free as a bird, no names, specifications, starting points, just wandering through the universe of existence, and then a pause,
everything changed. he was enslaved
with Februarys and Julys, Mondays, A.M.s and
P.M.s. The remodel was supposedly to save daylight, and the perpetual keeping up would need be adjusted every so often, like when you
started tiring or looked over your
shoulder, leapt to catch up, or
perhaps take a bite.
Honeydew by
Craig Kirchner Out
to dinner, at the pub, in the company of friends, family, strangers, others, you
would steal a stare— speak of Egypt and China, in
no uncertain terms, of social mores, decadence, moralities
old and new. I was to celebrate you, respect you, leave no doubt, that I adored you. As the four large candles flickered their
aroma of lavender, and softened the otherwise dark
room, with an intimate soft gold aura, your
self-reliance melted. You offered with a shy, almost naked vulnerability, that beyond the walls of the
world, you needed me to touch you often, intensely,
everywhere, and then you’d be assured that we loved. The
walls of this room, this conversation, and the space and
glow between us matured, but you arose, your eyes caressed like lips,
as you explained, that, a bit of honeydew would
prolong the moment, sweeten the scent, wet any dry, that
would mingle with mine forever.
No Doubt by Craig Kirchner We wake, the eyes
open, we move to the
side to get up. The floor will be
there, your legs will
work. No matter how still, the
wind will return, no one knows
from where— one-club or honker
down. Trees stay put, years later, I have no hair, the oak of my
youth, is surrounded by
the same acorns. Mercury comes together, rolls off the table, splashes
to the floor, strives quickly
to reunite. Your touch, knows before I do, what I’ll know and say, accepts the flat of the kitchen table, and
how the earth seems lately.
Sun
Parlor by Craig Kirchner The
parlor got the morning sun, facing east and
the park, I sat in front of
the piano, Susan sat on the ottoman in the corner,
in her green quilted dress and bow flats, waiting on the Webers. They would pull up in their ’56
grey Buick. It was a 3-mile
ride to Church, usually quiet, maybe some polite kid quiz stuff like how
is school? At the
end of the Sunday School hour, we would seek out the Webers, get
back in the Buick, and retrace Belair
Road to the park. I didn’t know
their first names. Did
the church pick them, because they were
good and willing
Lutherans, who were on the way? Were my parents thought of as heathens?
This ritual
hypocrisy was my intro to religion. The most spiritual part of childhood
Sabbaths was the sun
radiating the parlor, and my sister sitting patiently, politely, adorably
in her Sunday best.
Wasteland by Craig
Kirchner The forest thrived, nothing extravagant, but a diverse
group of trees that had communicated
for thousands of years, through millions of roots and fungi, peacefully,
with no malice or hatred. The
maternal trees were proud of their young. When the men came with their trucks, and their removal
technology, the
mycelium warnings were frantic, but there wasn’t anything they could do, nowhere they
could go, and no way for them to get
to a refuge, had there been one. They were there as their saplings were cut
down, and
then the mothers too were cut, eliminated. The forest that had thrived, had beautified, had fed one
another with its delicate system, was
now a barren wasteland. The sun had nothing to touch, to nurture. The men who had slaughtered were content
in their
ignorance that this was their world, and trees were just in it. This forest
had prospered eons before they claimed
this land, it seemed as if they destroyed because they could. Their lack of compassion, shared by the
throng back home, despite
the innocence of the trees, didn’t seem misplaced, they had the power, seemed to need
the carnage to stay in power, and assured one another they needed the wood.
Hell by
Craig Kirchner “And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be
wailing and gnashing of teeth.”
Matthew 13:42 God is credited with creating Hell, for
the Devil and other fallen angels, as a place
of everlasting fire. California seems particularly plagued, but
there was a Siberian fire that destroyed
55 million acres of forest. In 2019 Australia recorded its hottest and
driest year. In 2020 a bushfire took out 42 million
acres and killed 61,000 koalas. Hell is described as a place of intense
suffering and despair, which Siberia can
attest to, and
which all mankind could experience, as devastating
fires become more severe, frequent and
widespread. The
planet like Australia keeps getting
hotter. Ironically those who clutch the flag, and carry a Bible and a cross, seem to be some of the biggest deniers, that
man is creating his own Hell. Matthew, Mark, and Revelations warn
that through sin and lying, man can find his
way to his own Hell. Not
below or under, here on the surface, amidst
whole new levels of manifest lying, which will
continue to burn. There is no metaphor or simile for a
planet consumed in rising oceans, manifest
flame, and dead koalas.
Purgatory Blvd. by Craig Kirchner It’s foggy, everything
is vague and soft, doesn’t know how he got here, but
thankfully, there is no pain. The street sign comes
into view, it reads Purgatory Blvd, with an arrow. Between
here and Heaven could be vast, or right around the
corner, no cross streets, just various stark stone street signs pointing
the way. Is he here alone, or will he be joined by others, in
the same state of puzzled sinfulness? Is there a sponsor
to tell him how he’s doing, and what the program is? Twelve points,
a stopover for the unchaste, a
difficult journey taking decades, or centuries of constructing
wholesomeness? Suffering was always
implied as part of the process. The possibilities seem to range, from
a long walk alone, to torture. It does seem to come
with a guarantee, that he won’t end up burning in Hell, or
he’d be there. But it seems clear,
he won’t know Heavenly Bliss until he walks the miles and suffers. He
has never been a joiner, not much on authority, or
contrition—this could end up being, a particularly tough
stage in his development.
Labyrinths by Craig Kirchner It is not a pool
day, ugly, overcast, which should assure alone, while reading
Borges. She walks through the gate, and takes a chaise. She’s short, squat, like a bowling ball, skin hangs on the
frame in a one-piece floral suit, no straps, it just hugs the mass. Gray hair tied back
with a clip, wide face, tough look, like a drill sergeant. She gets right in the water, and starts gliding
around the perimeter. stopping at each drain and sticking her hand in as though to clean
them out. I think how community minded, and go back to Jorge. A few poems later, she is on her
fourth procession. She wades from one to the next, whisks her hand through the drain, perhaps in search
of something. She doesn’t seem rushed, meditative, like this is a religious maybe the fourteen stations of the cross. On her twelfth circle, I think of the
twelve steps, especially number four – Make a searching
and fearless, moral inventory of ourselves – and
our drains. Reminding myself how much I detest judgmental, she finishes the ritual, and sits in her
chaise, and you couldn’t make this up, opens Labyrinths, the cover with
the
compartmentalized head cut open. It is going to rain any moment, I collect myself, and must pass her on the way out. Jorge looks at me
from my cover, and reminds me that, Life itself is a quotation, and this afternoon
obviously a question. She looks up from her book and smiles,
her smile
is her only feminine feature. Have a nice day, she says. Some greater power, which I never give any credit, has sent you, and Jorge Luis to make mine, there is a roar of
thunder in the distance, and the first drop of rain hits my forehead.
Craig Kirchner is
retired and thinks of poetry as hobo art. He loves storytelling
and the aesthetics of the paper and pen. He has had
two poems nominated for the Pushcart, and has a book of poetry, Roomful of
Navels. He houses 500 books in his office and about 400 poems in a folder on a laptop.
These words tend to keep him straight. After
a writing hiatus he was recently published in Poetry
Quarterly, Decadent Review, New World Writing,
Neologism, The Light Ekphrastic, Unlikely Stories, Wild Violet, Last Stanza, Unbroken,
W-Poesis, The Globe Review, Skinny, Your Impossible Voice, Fairfield Scribes, Spillwords,
WitCraft, Bombfire, Ink in Thirds, Ginosko, Last Leaves, Literary Heist,
Blotter, Quail Bell , Ariel Chart, Lit Shark, Gas, Teach-Write, and has work forthcoming
in Cape, Scars, Yellow Mama, Rundelania, Flora Fiction, Young Ravens, Loud Coffee
Press, Versification,
Vine Leaf Press, Edge of Humanity and the Journal of Expressive Writing.
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