Thursday, March 28, 2013

Jeffrey Park- Three Poems

AFTER THE STORM
 
Oily shimmers spread slowly across
the face of the reservoir like
a toxic rainbow fallen from the heavens
 
and on the sand at the bottom of the pool
a twisted confusion
wreckage of metallic carapaces and
alloy-armored appendages
 
man-sized mechanized crustaceans
poached to a coppery hue and abandoned
to the fierce affections of oxidation.
 
Long after the waters have leached away
their burnished sheaths and corroded their
gauntleted clamps, their optical lenses
still flicker with dream images
 
of glorious battles fought between bloodless
pitiless soulless adversaries
beneath an endless sea of ink
scored by a thousand burning satellites.
 
 
CONTACT
 
To them it was odorless,
colorless, flavorless, detectable
only through application
of the most sensitive instruments
and why give a name to something
whose very omnipresence
belies the fact of its existence?
 
And as my gleaming chitinous
integument begins to melt
before their luminescent
eyes, they all twist their shapely
limbs in sympathy, thinking
perhaps what a shame it is
that we should meet
 
by sad coincidence just at
the moment of my spontaneous
but, for my kind, quite inevitable
dissolution.
 
 
DONOR
 
I saw the boy with my eyes again
this morning, and a middle-aged woman,
her faced marred by my too-large pores,
felt my heart beating painfully hard
as a jogger slogged past me in the street,
heard my stomach growling from inside
a half-open door. And again, and for
the thousandth time, I asked myself why
I must be plagued by this peculiarity,
this wretched ability to give and give and
give some more until I can’t even look at
an attractive woman without feeling
a stab of incestuous guilt. Ever the
unwilling benefactor, I try locking myself
in again, closing my eyes and ears
to the endless pleading – knowing that in
the end I’ll give in once more, lay
myself down and allow them to help
themselves to my constantly regenerating
bounty. It’s tissue they’ll be wanting
this time, I’ve seen the smoke rising on
the horizon. And they’ll leave me flayed
and writhing on the table, dreading
the horrible itch of the new skin to come –
altruist, angel, philanthropist,
great sobbing bundle of shattered nerves
and freshly grown replacement parts.
 
 
 
Bio: Jeffrey Park's poems have appeared in journals such as Subliminal InteriorsDanse MacabreCrack the Spine, and Right Hand Pointing, and his digital chapbook, Inorganic, is available online from White Knuckle Press. His poem "Hard To Reach" has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. A native of Baltimore, Jeffrey now lives in Munich, Germany, where he works at a private secondary school. Links to all of his published work can be found at www.scribbles-and-dribbles.com.

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