Untitled Country Review (ISSN 2152-7903), published quarterly during 2010-2013, features poetry, book reviews, photography, and short works of non-fiction. Thank you for visiting.


Issue 3: Terry Brix






Guilty of You Being More Than I Can Handle

You’re an octopus, eight arms & a myriad of lovely suction cups,
hang adeptly from any ceilings, infinitely mobile,
gymnast agile, lotus position, Kama Sutra, even rollerblading,
You squeeze your body into bottles, crannies & odd hollows
when trouble or moods attack, hide in the clouds of your own ink.

I am clam sometimes less mobile yet, like an oyster.
So firm in my stubbornness, rocks seem like Jello. 
Content to pump, pump seawater, tide pools, filter out sand,
strain out micro algae, unicellular crumbs. Anchored.
Visible, can’t hide. Big sign says, “shuck me.”
Guilty.

You are bird. Feathers, colored plumage, osprey high flight,
plummet talon drop, long-necked blue heron in low-river swoop,
mergansers with against the current motorboat whir.
Words on paper, film clips, books oozing from pores.
You nest, let me come & nestle play goddess watcher.

I am an ostrich. No, sometimes not even that, just an emu,
couldn’t conceive of flight not even flap stumps to imagine.
Adept at high speed running though, swallowing bright
objects––Coke bottles, golf balls, watches, fifths, pride.
Guilty.

You do projects logically: idea first, think, check-off
with friends, solicit resources complete with facts.
Then step by step pause for flowers, food, sunsets.
Idea microwaves & you popcorn explode, blossom,
exude enthusiasm, joy sticks out of you like a porcupine.
Compelled to share––a prickle of quills tickling,
inoculating me from boredom, sameness,
popping hard-line jaw frowns with endless smiles.

I do everything illogically: splats, huge polka-dot bursts,
like Chinese fireworks except rockets glare inside.
I pull the pin & then leap on the exploding grenade.

Pieces fly, phones ring, emails hail––feel pregnant. 
Then I give birth to in-animates like rocks,
many small, some massive like juggling
pyramids & molehills, tombstones & wedding rings.
After going from A to Z, years spent back-filling.
Long-term secret energy comes from Montana.
Mountains grinding inside me, sifting gangue from gold.
Guilty.

--Terry Brix




Previous                        Table of Contents                        Next

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for this richly imagined poem with its vivid, dialogic contrasts. It builds to that final stanza, which is a collage of movement and process toward something--something geologic and centered?

    ReplyDelete

Untitled Country Review welcomes comments. Comments are moderated... Thank you for visiting.