Phantom Tongue
poems, Steven Sanchez
Sundress Publications, 2018
~
‘I step back to remember
what else my body’s darkness saturates’ – {from} What the Water Gave Me
I don’t know what poetry should do; this language, third language, I was born to miss. But there is a work being done by Steven Sanchez in the book Phantom Tongue that, embedded in miracle, outgrows witness. That you will lose your voice reading. That calls echo the pearl of ache, and names chasm as the twice present history of seek and summon. Body as hyphen, body as bridge. Touch be a landmark. Dear poem, do these. See in your dream a puppet keeping safe a compass. Lead from the dream the angel confused by hunger.
~
reflection by Barton Smock
~
book is here:
https://squareup.com/market/sundress-publications/item/phantom-tongue-by-steven-sanchez-pre-order
have you written slowly enough for things to happen? lovely
wrist
I will eat
what is there. a flower, a clumsy
angel
touching the nerve
of a ghost
some recent:
[how I want you to remember my sister]
in a puppet show
about washing
my son’s
feet, or waving down
the ice cream truck
with her bible, or
as farewell
to nothing’s
church
of neither
~
[bod]
in how many dreams have you appeared
that were not
at first
yours
–
hey
–
in movies
–
when streetlights go out one by one
I don’t feel
interrupted
~
[pseudo]
between the house of the first suicide
and the house of the second
there’s one
with a dog door.
the moms all work at the same ghost jail.
the dads say things like
/ finally a parrot I can hear / & / in hell
nobody steps
on their reading
glasses.
the dream is there we put our mouths on. our hands.
the dream
that was nest.
brothers dressed like jesus
brush their teeth
and sisters
keep a tender
thumb.
~
[lawn musics]
books on arson, grammar, vandalism…
god, multiple owners.
a typewriter
touched by father
at night.
the electric chair my brother imagined
& the hair
my sister…
adam (who’s never known the age of eve
~
[being alone went by so fast]
we have in my city a museum just like this. I, too, am private and have lost an unabsorbed child. I am,
inventory, very motherly.
this one-man radio show about a father looking for his mouth. this tornado.
my first owl was a bee-loving tick. my first milk
was jigsaw
milk. being alone went by so fast.
~
[cord musics]
there is nothing for the brained cow. still,
you braid the sound of an eye
coming up for air.
hunger has one breast, is a doll
based on a painted toe. at the feast
of the sockless alien
are its babies foot and fall.
~
[ideations]
with his mother’s purse under his arm
the gatherer
of knocked-out
teeth
tracks
to the entrance
of a waterpark
the so-called
last
deer to imagine
a rock
empty
~
note: thru May 31st, Lulu is offering 15% off all print books with coupon code of FIFTEEN
poetry collections, mine, self-published, are here: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/acolyteroad
~
~
ISACOUSTIC
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~
RECENT, @
Peter Twal
https://isacoustic.com/2018/05/29/person-peter-twal-two-poems/
I.V. Katen
https://isacoustic.com/2018/05/27/person-i-v-katen-two-poems/
reflection on Hannah Cohen’s Bad Anatomy:
https://isacoustic.com/2018/05/25/bad-anatomy-poems-hannah-cohen/
Peter Twal is the author of Our Earliest Tattoos, winner of the 2018 Etel Adnan Poetry Prize from the University of Arkansas Press. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Believer, Best New Poets, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere.
/
It’s the Memory of Our Betters
On the moon, a blue jay, unsure where it last left its nest
prays to Saint Anthony while on earth someone incorrectly
adjusts a thermostat & a museum of natural history explodes— creating
more natural history Lost in awe in a light bulb
exhibit, reading every last placard, the sun explodes as well, a pimple
from a Hubble away & yet: The torch has been passed down, the sun sighs, smothered
beneath the rubble Death comes to us full-
bellied but always craving & the next time architects resurrect the museum,
precautions are taken to protect the art: Patrons please…
View original post 219 more words
whose purple thumb is found in a grey ball of yarn
has remembered
every baby
I.V. Katen is a young writer who goes to school in Atlanta, GA.
( )
baby foal or i fear the feeling of water on my bare skin
when it rains outside, it doesn’t stop. the flood rolls in easily, smoothly. taking out many. taking out all. the children– they say that when you look out over the horizon when the water rises above the lower doorsteps– they say there’s a stillborn horse, covered in placenta and oxygen-starved blood, just there. just there. “reincarnated from a bad, bad person, probably.” reincarnated to die in the womb. cowled over the rivers and the streams. cowled over the rocks. dead as a doornail but still, just there. something that will never gallop. something that will never breathe by itself. did the mother drown? was the father shot? were there any older siblings? younger? walking towards it proves unnecessary. it’s just there. strabismus…
View original post 52 more words
sister
a loneliness
for which
I was framed
my father saw his first ghost and his first UFO on the same day
–
canoe
of heartbreak
a wound
is
–
a fish
occurring
to fish
I patch my son’s nightmare with the shadow of a fish
–
Cain
had a sister
he wouldn’t
kill
–
raise mosquito
the lost earring
of christ
thru May 28th, Lulu is offering 10% off all print books AND free mail shipping (or 50% off ground) with coupon code of BOOKSHIP18
poetry collections, mine, self-published, are here: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/acolyteroad
kingsoftrain 