Chris Siteman

AQUANET

We swung swings, pendulum-chain- whine, sang atop aloud, kicked

toes shoed beyond tight-closed hands at sky sugared blue as blue-

blue could be; how many swings swung kicking

at eggshell glass atmospheres?

Was nothing new—

Was always

a game—

Down in dirt, breathing mushroom breaths, counted

worms, spiders— Gasped as grasped the world

between dirt fingers—

Then threw wasps into yellow-black

field spider webs to see who’d best who— Who died;

who stayed—

Sprayed

anthills with Aquanet, set them aflame, even then—

Reaching into tomorrow

for the new but just the same—

Was nothing new—

Was all just a game—

And still, the world before us unfurled a hush sweet grass lay

where deer spent chill night—

Already far off in woods breathing-sweating-savage-beautiful-

moss-antler-stags, does, fawns—

Same as songs

we sang down the cut in woods—

Was all just the same—

A nothing sort of game—

SINNERS' MASS

for NH, PH & VD

Five a.m.— Sapphire blue razor wind cuts razor-thin

eggshell-iris horizons under anvil atmospheres—

And we’re whipped, standing

a black-ice sidewalk across from a Somerville-red

brick church having a smoke, & the stained yellow, green & violet

rose window’s lit from within—

We’re whiskey-breathed

as so many pews sit empty when we walk through

unlocked oaken double-tall -double-wide doors:

iron-strapped wood hangs, creaks hinges thick as books—

They’re ghost-guards, older orders, still

stand worded-watch at the door, still hold spears chest-crossed:

barring the way cannot be barred—

And we’re sitting huddled together, all four of us,

awaiting some priest to pound pulpit fists, our late-night homily,

but the priest never comes, & it’s still just us, quiet

as snow swirls outside— In whispers even drunk, evoking the dead

three of us sit cross-handed for the fourth to liturgize dawn,

sermonize the holy nature of ecstasy—

But all we hear’s snapping gestures near silence,

the no words ditty, tunes frozen sizzling hot—

And I’m thinking Keats’ cold pastoral, & Dante’s river-mouth:

estuary; ostiary; water-writ; lowest order;

black-river-mud-banks; remembering; forgetting—

Whitman’s long beard & Ginsberg’s smoking

California Lethe—

Feeling ceilings fly

away other sides beyond frames— Feel electric

shifts turbulent air swirls spire-ward—

Stone arches point; all draws eyes skyward—

High-vault ceilings painted cobalt-

blue-silver-gold-specked: stars collapse inward—

Rings towards the center where the last morning star sits—

And the lights all twinkle darkness-edge

as shooting stars streak red-green-violet-white—

Sears across glass & gone— Before human eyes ever catch them—

MR. CROWLEY

for C.P.

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.”

The Book of the Law, Ch. I, A. Crowley (1904)

We’re rocking out: Sabbath, then Ozzy, robo-tripping, awaiting

dawn as a Randy Rhoads solo red-eye flight takes us across

oceans see-

touch-taste other lands— Hear other music erupt other songs—

Wide river-mouth-choirs rise up—

Open—

But we’re still home,

where crabapple branches reach through kitchen windows,

full bloom, glow blue-white predawn—

We sit

a table; we’re the couch;

front door; closet; eyes turn windows

looking—

And somehow standing

between the kitchen doorway

and your book slipped among so many books—

We teeter, knowing edges: push Jaeger-full cups over

counter edges reaching to touch guitar string horizons

holy— Tears well eyes;

hard laughing knots guts—

Your Confessions jumps shelf & lands visaged cover up— You

hold a dark bird aloft,

your eyes ceiling-ward;

we stop cold—

In my head, I’m numbered among the dead

seated aboard a plane

high over Lethe: I’m reading Rushdie’s Verses

when our plane explodes an orange-black-red blossom

against eggshell- yellow-white-blue—

I’m outside at 35,000 feet:

pilots, attendants, passengers, puppies & other pets

fall & flail seems endless air—

Finding brass horn handed, I blow fire notes; I fall

playing blood-&- making songs—

And hit ground hard a misty moor

deep night where you hurl spells— Back & forth with Yeats

where hard-bitten prayers fork words to lightning—

Chris Siteman teaches in the English Departments at Suffolk University and Bridgewater State University. His chapbook, PART X of ME, is forthcoming from Pen & Anvil Press (Boston, MA). And his poems have appeared in journals such as The American Journal of Poetry, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Salamander, The Worcester Review, The Carolina Quarterly and Consequence Magazine, among numerous others.