42opus

is an online magazine of the literary arts.

22 January 2006 | Vol. 5, No. 4

A Visit to the Underworld Can Permanently Alter Your Perspective on 'Restless Existence'

He said, "As power-driven as an Anglo-Saxon sea poem," and

He was not looking out the window


(No, I didn't make that up

But I rearranged it)


A little farther south they say, "When the winds blow, kneel

To Eros"


*


She died her hair blue, then red, then almost white

Better, she said, than killing herself


Or drinking or taking her clothes off

Too often in a public place


"Empty your pockets! Do you have enough?"

Myself, I would only do that if it were fun


*


He said, "Trust no one," and she laughed

The job description reads, roughly, hooked on the bang-bang


To kill you first must obfuscate, say

"Ammo more expensive than a gun"


"Let's buy a bullet! Who's got bread?"

The only thing that's here is human beings


*


Salt on her skin, what are the odds?

She was fishing up facts, or finishing


"Was that a hole in the ground?"

"Was that my head?"


If I move I will bump into something

And knock it down

About the author:

Susan Tichy has poems in recent or forthcoming issues of Agni, Denver Quarterly, Hotel Amerika, Indiana Review, and Beloit Poetry Journal. You can read one, called "One, Two," along with a bunch of archived work, on the Beloit Poetry Journal web archive. Her third book, Bone Pagoda, poems on Vietnam, is forthcoming from Ahsahta Press. She lives in Colorado and in Virginia, where she teaches at George Mason University. She also serves as Contributing Editor for the new journal, Practice: New Writing + Art. She can be reached online at .

Source:

http://42opus.com/v5n4/avisitto

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