The Nepotist

When The Nepotist put out the anonymous call to his friends asking them to send along poems, he knew-- because of course his friends are amazing and talented-- that the poems he'd receive would impress him. The following two poems by Heather Aimee O'Neill, however, do more than impress him. These two poems drop him from a sharp height. They bust him open and apart. They move him. Across the room, through the halls of the house, out the door into the dark backyard, they move him. "First water, / then body, voice and faith," she writes. I love the open honesty of these poems. I love their voice-- so sincere it almost quakes. I am beyond pleased to publish these.

Thanks, Heather.

***

Certainty

Jess would ask Lewis Carroll for a word

for word translation of jabberwocky

or Buffalo Bill where he hid the gold.

Laure-Anne would ask Mary-Magdalene

if she and Christ were lovers.

Anthony would ask Christ:

Will you help me? And Ruby would

ask Christ to speak slowly this time,

to please write down the words himself.

Sean will not reveal his question,

nor will Liam. They do

not know, yet.

Jill would ask her husband: Why?

Carol would ask her father: Who were you

before the war? She would ask her mother:

Why did you stay?

Meredith would ask: Where were you

on that cloudless morning?

Was it awful? Were you alone? Can you see

my newborn son?

Jay would ask the ghost of Hitler: Do you think

it was worth it? William would ask his grandmother

why she and his grandfather slept in separate rooms.

My father would ask the man who murdered his God

child: Why are you still alive?

Catherine would ask Mother Superior

of St. John's convent: Were we that unworthy?

Am I still that unworthy?

***

Mars May Have Been A Land Of Lakes*

Let's begin by deciding what it is

we're trying to define. You're

impossible. That's what I've decided,

that's how I've defined you.

Nature has a way of compensating.

As a blonde, I should have 38,000 more

strands of hair on my head than my

brunette sister, my redhead brother.

You found one on your pillow

and, hours after I left, called to see

if I wanted it back. An eyelash,

you would have kept for yourself.

Mars may have been a land of lakes,

but the satellite orbits us, and the photos

cannot reveal such distant history.

And why should they? We can't

even be honest with each other,

let alone believe the billion years

it took for us to happen: first water,

then body, voice and faith.

*Title from a newspaper article in The Scotsman-December 2000

***

About the Poet:

Heather Aimee O'Neill teaches creative writing at CUNY Hunter College of New York and is the Assistant Director of the Sackett Street Writers' Workshop. Her work has been published in Many Mountains Moving, Contemporary Verse and The Truth About The Fact: An International Journal of Literary Non-Fiction, among others. She lives in Brooklyn and is currently working on her first novel.

On the identity of The Nepotist:

I don't know who you are, but I see brown hair and freckles. And I'm glad we're friends.

Posted by Editor at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

There are three human questions, correlated perfectly

with past, present, and future:

where did we come from, what is

the meaning of life, and what happens after we die.  As if grappling

for a light switch, we attempt to answer these questions.

A light year is a distance, and so is a year, and there is love

even when we’re not great at it. 

The jungle owns its trees and its water.  And the idea of a jungle

we cannot separate

from drama and heat, when all the themes we could ever want, we have:

innocence, hate, eternity, and sound, let’s hear it.  Without gratitude

there is no house, the economy is a lion,

and gravity shrugs its shoulders.  Let’s hear it.

Like a true finality

earnestly discarded, forever’s voice is disarming

but incomprehensible.  Who knows

what it’s up to, but it doesn’t seem ideal, and is adored by desire.

***

Dear Successful Accidents 

The meaning of life is in the passing years

only believable during sleep, and in the silent standstill of fathers,

heaps of standing silent fathers in the corners

of every room, fathers who have their doubts and act accordingly—

in our foul moods it’s not uncommon to want

the music to stop, and have that represent salvation. 

And salvation is another word for dune, for joy,

another word for insomnia, endless eternity, for making a fist…

Sometimes, in the night, the unexpected arrives.

Like lost rabbits beneath the stars, or a small lizard in the forest.

Before becoming their fate, fathers feel their skin

is made of scales, and that they have tails

that break off in times of distress.  Every threat

they will end and watch end, and their will will be music, willfully.

***

About the Poet:

Nick Courtright’s poetry is forthcoming or has appeared in The Southern Review, Boston Review, The Iowa Review, and The Kenyon Review Online, among numerous others, and a chapbook, Elegy for the Builder’s Wife, is out with Blue Hour Press.  Most recently, he was the subject of a feature article on the Best American Poetry website.  He is a music critic and interviewer for the Austinist, and teaches at Southwestern and St. Edward’s Universities. 

On the identity of The Nepotist:

As for what I think of the editor...I hope he or she stays anonymous, FOREVER, or maybe just until next year, because that's the fun, yes?  Mysteries like this are good for the poetry world, and I think they offer proof of the vitality of the community, amidst all the debbie-downerism that too-often creeps in.  That, and who doesn't love a secret admirer?

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So The Nepotist has, as you may have noticed, taken a break from posting for almost the entire month of September.  This is because The Nepotist, like many of his readers and poets, is a university instructor and as everybody knows, September is hell on professors. 

But now I'm back.  And I wanted to come back with a particular kind of bang. And so I present to you the following sonnets by Bernadette Geyer.  I'm most taken with the way that she navigates these domestic waters (cupboards! closets! floorboards! dust!) with a placid matter-of-factness that, on first read, might be mistaken as lightness.  But look: there's absolutely nothing light or bright about the imperatives the poems whisper in their speakers' ears Sweets beget decay as rain begets rust. / Lick the wound and mop the floor reproaches adorn the window sill... And do not mistake the mention of fairy tales in the second poem as an expression of levity.  The poem ends with an absolute loss of direction.  It's a poignant end to a sad poem that tells itself with truth's supple musculature. 

Thanks, Bernadette.

***

Sonnet of the Mad Housewife

Spindle-pin bones and pursed lips

inclined to fret, to frown, forget—

counting pennies, blessings and tips

away in sacred cupboards, closets.

Hush-a-bye floorboards, forget-me-not stain,

calico vanity covered in dust.

Bleaches to cleanse where no real love has lain.

Sweets beget decay as rain begets rust.

Lick the wound and mop the floor—

reproaches adorn the window sill.

Though no regrets and no remorse,

this yellowing wallpaper talks to me still.

Lock the door!—where is my broom

to sweep away this dust and gloom?

***

Goodbye to Fairy Tales

Where have all the witches gone? 

Where does this overgrown path lead?

What happened to the careful trail I laid?

Where is all the good and bad I counted on?

I’ve been pricked, but where’s my sleep?

Is it under a haystack with Little Boy Blue

who left his home in the crowded shoe?

Or is it in the meadow counting sheep?

I ran and I ran as fast as I could

but the Gingerbread Man bought a horse.

The soles of my dancing shoes are now worn through.

The loggers leveled the deep dark wood

when the dish and spoon filed for divorce.

And none of us knows, anymore, what to do.

***

About the Poet:

Bernadette Geyer is the author of the chapbook What Remains, and recipient of a 2010 Strauss Fellowship from the Arts Council of Fairfax County. Her poems have appeared in Verse Daily, The Los Angeles Review, Midwest Quarterly and elsewhere. She works as a freelance writer/editor in the Washington, DC, area, and reviews books at http://rantsravesreviews.homestead.com.

On the identity of The Nepotist: 

The Nepotist is either my mom or dad, tired of hearing me complain about how hard it is to get published. Or, it's my husband, and he secretly likes poetry waaaaaay more than he is willing to admit.

Posted by Editor at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Days are, and the planets scuttle into a wickedly delicious, throbbing and delightful arrangement of auspicious alignment.  Other days, they cannot manage even the idea of such a feat. 

Today I present three poems by Jennifer L. Knox.  Which makes it a rare day of the former sort.  Ho, best of donkey.  Ha, best of horse. 

Fuck, yes. 

Thanks, Jennifer.  

***

The Mules of Death Valley

Hauling bone-white borax up from the hellish Harmony

Mine Works in July. Each on the train, the end

of its line. The end, mule. Ya.

How sad. Soft ears and whip-

cracking clever, drivers said.

Patient. Affectionate. Loyal. Beloved.

Ho, best of donkey. Ha, best of horse.

They can kick in all directions but won’t

willy-nilly. Ideal companions for lone

prospectors plodding past Badwater’s tease,

past the thin, unhinged shacks of Rhyolite.

There [he spots two specks—another

man and mule—maybe a half day’s off].

Why would God give such gifts to an end of-

the-line animal that loves only this world now—

loves only those of this now—the ones mad

enough to leave green homes and farms for Furnace Creek.

There’re no others to love.

Both are the ends of their lines.

For years Scotty blabbed about a mine so deep

it went clean through the earth.

The only other set of eyes to ever fall upon it were

a mule’s.

Why give soft ears where God’s grace

melts fast as ice?

***

Marriage

All year, crawling home from bars—through snow, rain and sweat-stinging summer nights. But in August peonies began to beckon me from the kept yards of houses we’d never own because we couldn’t keep money in our pockets, because we were always going to bars, because we never cared for the quiet work of caring. We stuffed ourselves fat on clutter and glitter—on meat and beer and Mardi Gras beads—taking in and in but never taking care. How did such blowzy flowers manage to come back after nine months of bitter winter? Tough blood. I’d steal them whether in full fluffy bloom, or still in budlike fists. The bright fibrous stems were a bitch to sever, even with my teeth. Many times trying to boost a bouquet, I yanked a whole bush out by the roots. He’d stand on the sidewalk with a dark smudge for a face and say, “You know what’s gonna happen.” And I did. I’d carry home the flowers I’d risked getting busted for, not trim the stems at an angle, not fill a vase with water and a pinch of sugar or a penny to keep them fresh, nor arrange them high to low like children in a class photograph. Instead I’d dump the lot in a heap on the kitchen table, pass out in my clothes, and snore all night like a pig. The next morning, we would wake to a million ants pouring from the flowers, down the rusty table legs, and onto the wine-spotted rug. Ants are the fingers combing the Filofax pages that are the petals of the peony. I could’ve left them to live, to thrive beside a house—maybe with a little girl inside who made up stories for the flowers about princesses in feathery skirts, but I didn’t. I killed them, then stuffed the seething, gorgeous things into the trash. I could’ve planted my own outside our rented house, heavy with dead Christmas lights, but I didn’t know how to grow things then. I still don’t really, but it’s rare I get drunk enough to tear up someone else’s garden.

***

A Coyote Walks Into a Quizno’s

How gameless must’ve been the plains

to drive it through the traffic of Chicago.

How flat-out busted to muster nonchalance

and sidle by a winding lunch crowd line seeking

handouts from predators and curl up by a cooler

in the dead-end back. Too bushed to shrink

from our hunger’s sour scent. Giving up,

closing in, or had it snapped—seen itself

a son, prodigally lying down among its like?

’Til Animal Control arrived, serene—green

eyes low, but not deferred—primed to parley:

“From one hunter to another, brother,

spare a scrap? I’ll get you back.”

***

About the Poet:

Jennifer L. Knox was born in Lancaster, California—home to Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, and the Space Shuttle. Her new book of poems, The Mystery of the Hidden Driveway, will be available on Bloof Books in Fall 2010. Her other books of poems, Drunk by Noon and A Gringo Like Me, are also available through Bloof.

On the identity of The Nepotist:

I think the Nepotist is a type-A workaholic who feels extremely confident in his/her own skin. A cross between Christopher Walken in A View to A Kill, and Ru Paul. He/she probably carries a gun in his/her pocket, but keeps the bullets in a different place. Like Finland. I don't think he/she hails from any of the southern states. He/she often surprises friends with his/her cooking skills, and may regularly participate in live medieval role playing games, like jousting. I'll say Reb Livingston.

Posted by Editor at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Nepotist notes that he's often quick to celebrate a poem's loveliness, its beauty, its grace or even its pulchritude. But none of these adjectives, however, is particularly apt when describing the following two poems by Andrew Shields. Do not mistake me: these are fantastic poems. Andrew's diction is firm and his sense of the poetic line and how to harness its force to pummel a poem towards its inevitable ending is unquestionable. What prevents me from using soft, pretty words to describe these poems is simply the gritty undercurrent of the poems themselves, the non-flinching stare with which they challenge me , the sadnesses they re-enact upon the page. They vacillate (within stanzas, even) between the harrow of a certain kind of truth ("Grandma drowned another litter today") and the agony of an altogether other kind of mystery ("The ants scavenge the burnt-out house"). No, if these poems are 'lovely', it's only in the way a very sharp knife is lovely; in the right light they glint and gleam and it's a fine, stabbing, dangerous point they come to. 

Thanks, Andrew.

***

UP SHIT CREEK

Somewhere, something's rotten—the stench

is everywhere here, upstream from the weeping willow,

where we used to go after school in fourth grade

and take turns kissing Johnny Watkins. We'd hide there

where nobody could see us but the dragonflies

and pretend we knew what we were doing.

Afterwards, the boys would take turns

calling him a sissy and beating him up.

God, nobody goes near him now—his nose

is brown as my tan. And the other boys

don't think kissing's for sissies anymore.

We come up here with them; the abandoned jetty

rusts in the current. The water behind it

is always still, the eddy marked only by insects

and fish. What's left of a canoe lies on the shore,

with two broken paddles. There's an anthill

beneath the canoe, and a stream of ants swarms up

the overgrown lawn that once ran smoothly

all the way to the house, perfect for croquet

and garden parties, everybody wearing white,

pretending to be rich. Kids do the drinking here now.

The ants scavenge the burnt-out house.

One room still has a roof; its walls are covered

with names and dates, who loves whom,

scribbled curses; the floor is a maze

of candle wax and cigarette butts,

shards of bottles and shattered windows.

Most nights, there are half a dozen kids,

drinking, smoking—last night was the first time

we were here alone.

                                 Hey, where is he?

Wriggling out of my sleeping bag,

I grab the T-shirt from on top of his—

"Fuck You," it says. Ricky's favorite words.

I squint through the thinning fog and see him

lazily zip up on the shore, spit

into the stream. There's hardly anything

to him, he's all arms and legs and hair,

but he's got a great ass, and last night he proved

he knows what he's doing. He wades slowly back

through the grass, pulling out a cigarette

as he passes the canoe. When he stops

to light up, I step out, in T-shirt and underwear,

my hair tangled, my eyes scrunched up

against the sun low over the trees behind him,

nose wrinkled against that smell. "What time is it?"

Taking a good drag, he checks his watch.

"Time to go." I walk the last few steps

to where he's standing, and slip the cigarette

from between his fingers. Lifting up my face

to his, I give him a lingering kiss, then take

my own drag, surround myself with smoke.

"We're gonna be in trouble," he adds. "Well," I drawl,

"no reason to go then, unless you're hungry."

I take him by the hand, head back to the house,

going back to where we were the night before.

***

COCK AND BULL

Grandma drowned another litter today;

she always seems to do that when I'm here.

When I was little, I'd get upset

when the mother started mewing and mewing,

looking around for her kittens, but now I know

she'll have forgotten it all by tomorrow.

She'll stretch out in the sun and sleep

until it's time to eat, then sleep again—

if this stupid rain has stopped.

If I weren't stuck here on the farm,

grounded for staying out all night with Ricky,

if I were back home and the sun was shining,

I'd lie beside the Hicks's swimming pool

and take off my swimsuit top to catch some rays,

and then when Ricky'd kiss me, his tongue

would be in my mouth, and his hands,

cold with the water he'd just been swimming in,

would make my skin shiver and burn.

Nothing to do but listen to the radio—

nothing on but shit my parents like,

country folkie stuff. Some guy's whining

about a rooster crowing—he's gonna leave,

and maybe it's better, some stupid crap like that.

I'd leave if I had anywhere to go.

"Don't think twice," the whiner sings to me.

"It'll give you time to think," Dad said.

Well, Dad: at least we used a condom; you

knocked Mom up when she was seventeen.

We woke at six and could have gone home then,

but why go home just to get in trouble?

It's not the same when the farm is punishment.

It's not the same since Grandpa had to sell

the stud bull that brought home all the prizes

from the County Fair. The ribbons are

still hanging on the wall. All he did

was stand in his stall all day and eat and eat.

I'd go look at him whenever I could.

On sunny days, they'd send me out to play,

and Grandpa'd always send me out whenever

other farmers brought their cows around.

As if I'd never heard my parents fuck—

heard the creaking; they never say a thing.

Ricky even asked me if I'd liked it.

And here I am without him, on the farm,

in trouble, thinking fucking twice, three times,

about what I did—and how I'd do it again.

I'd do it again, I'll do it again, goddamn it,

where's Ricky now, I want to do it again.

***

About the Poet:

Andrew Shields lives in Basel, Switzerland, where he teaches English at the University of Basel. His poems and translations from the German and the English have appeared online and in print in many places over the past dozen years. His band Human Shields plays songs he wrote (and two he wrote with lyrics by A. E. Stallings), as well as a few covers. He also publishes a blog.

On the identity of The Nepotist:

I don't know if I have ever drunk tequila and played Scrabble with the Nepotist, but I suspect it would be fun to do so (although these days I tend to single malts rather than tequila).

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