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THEATER
I dropped down against the mosque wall curled my shoulders in let my feet fall apart tilting toward the rubble-dusted floor tried to still my lashes as rifles came clanging in their muzzles smelling out scent heated off a pulse I was playing dead between the dead a beast caught sight of my breath blew off my face he said: “Now he’s fucking dead” |
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WATER sign of life: can hold a world of fleets at once: requiring a new OCEANOGRAPHY: useful to mimic waves in an assault and hit shore at same time: see also HELICOPTER WAVE: SCHEDULED WAVE: descends from garden hoses to rinse asphalt of brain matter: to rinse body on steel slab prior to shroud: streams on land: in gutters: excellent solvent: ask child you want a toy: then ask you want a grenade: watch him jump and startle: date fronds shaking with rain
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TELLING
The streets bend toward the Tombs,
a Chinatown of basement doctors,
and funeral parlors, of hell money and paper telephones
for the fire, and LOOK, how the BRANCHes
FLARE with cherry blossoms, how the knees
stay polite in their poetry reading seats.
LOOK, PULSEJET and RAINJET
but no blood jet.
LOOK, my father’s old Econoline, toolbox
for a back seat, his amber ashtray
and undershirts in front of the TV.
LOOK, our worried parents, the drink,
the bathroom with toilet paper chained to a pipe.
LOOK, the girl pushed to the ground
is still lying there, alkali in her mouth.
LOOK, the blindfolded HOSTAGE thinks
of oatmeal and house slippers and
no newspaper in the morning.
I teach myself to say yes
as restaurants collapse
their cold weather doorways and throw open
their windows. Women ride by in shorts,
miles of legs, flanked by bridges
and tunnels, an island
against itself. So often the TELLING
is good enough, is all I have,
the mouth willing to open
to its own surprise. I talk
to strangers on the subway,
even ask about a Dan Brown novel
to keep the face turned toward me.
On the SURVEILLENCE tape
the woman rides down the elevator
with her killer, watching the floors light up
until ground level over and over.
LOOK, the murderer is beautiful,
cheekbones and a white tee
and shoulders he hasn’t grown into yet,
slouched over the interrogation table.
I am the bully in the swivel chair
getting him to confess. I want
to MOUNT him without removing the gun
from his inside his head.
LOOK, my father HOLDs my floppy neck, worried
he’ll break me in those road-laying hands.
My mother brings me home to an Istanbul motel.
I see now how young she is,
how certain, already done
with writing and architecture. It will have to be me
who lives.
—
Solmaz’s first publication found in here:
Highly encourage you look up all the all caps words Solmaz uses in her poems
One of Solmaz’s sources of inspiration
Three of Solmaz’s poems at
Solmaz in
Rugama’s
All poems printed or reprinted with permission from the author.
Photo by Bianca Stone.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
I loved this interview. It’s refreshing to hear a poet with a clear sense of mission, able to articulate just what it is that she’s trying to accomplish as a writer.