THIS SATURDAY at 7 p.m., Kevin Rabas, Meadowlark Press, and you folks will be joining each other for the More Than Words virtual book launch celebration (make sure to register)!
Here are four poems extracted from each of the sections of the book, as well as an additional bonus poem from the bonus chapbook you'll receive when you order your copy of More Than Words.
OUR NATURE
[no one notices]
I.
No one notices
the sky
enough
when they run.
II.
But I’ve seen
tomorrow
coming, going,
a white line.
III.
Where will
we go
when we can
no longer
run, when I
no longer
have you
to follow?
(Re: Allison Schulnik's painting "Skipping Skeletons")
MUSIC
Neon Above All of the Clubs
This is Parker’s town
still, home of those
who can play
fast fast
if they need to, bop,
where fire
is respected, kept
under ice
in whiskey
and burns burns
above
in neon tubes.
GROWING UP
About that time we left the locker room through a cloud
When Spindly held Sam up against the lockers, Spindly’s fists at Sam’s shoulders, pinning him, I thought of Spider-Man, how he would have cocked his legs and given Spindly a quick kick and sprung into the room, taken all of those pock-faced bullies out. Middle school was like that, bullies fighting their own faces—with razors and zit cream—then taking it all out on you, hoping to turn your face red, too. We learned to ball our fists when we heard our names. Don’t wait. Don’t get hit before you’re ready to put at least one punch up, at least draw a purple bruise across a chin or chest, leave a mark before you go down. That way, you might not be the mark next time. That way, they know you have some scrap in you. We were all little. We were alone when gym was done, there in the locker room. The only time I saw coach stop a fight, all he did was turn all of the shower heads on. The room soon a cloud, and the little ones, we fled first from the plume, as if behind us there’d been fire or a bomb. We never looked back, not for fear we’d turn to salt, but because everyone knows you run better if you never ever turn.
ROMANCE
Preacher Couple
We were both
from West Texas,
cattle country, going
to college in liberal
Colorado. She lived
with vegetarians. Every once
in a while, we’d go
on a date, eat meat.
SICKNESS
[corona—stage one]
so even our little town
goes mostly silent
at night, the only cars
parked at a diagonal
are outside mulready’s pub,
people out for st. pat’s day,
and I lug in my drums, play
like I’ve got a bodhran,
my brushes fluttering
over the drum
with the snares off,
and I try not to touch
anyone, but a fan or two
give us hugs, take hold
of a hand with that
double-fisted grasp.
I’m really not that famous,
just someone drunk
thinks they know me
and wants to touch.
MORE THAN WORDS COMPANION CHAPBOOK
[sketch, 23 Feb. 2021, 4:53 p.m., Emporia, KS]
Down the block again the sound of basketball on driveway, the thud and uptick, a bounce that means the ice is gone, the snow pushed to the side, the season changing, getting better.
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