Hobble Creek Review
| Joe Milford |
No Entrance
As long as he remembered, he always had the door. It was
cumbersome, awkward. He carried it on his back. Would that it
would have been a window. See, doors come with decisions,
responsibilities. The door, once slung off his back and planted into
the ground, could be opened to any imaginable location. When broke,
he could portal himself into bank vaults. When in danger, he could
portal away to some beautiful suite in a luxury resort overlooking
gorgeous seas. He covered every major monument. He traveled to
every exotic locale. Every great citadel on the planet. Several times
he mispronounced a location and landed in the wrong place: the
bottom of the ocean, the guts of a volcano, hovering beside the moon,
amidst a pride of predators on a grassy plain. He was, so far, always
able to recover. The door became heavier through the years. Its
frame began to crack, the grain in its ancient wood flaking and
wrangled. He grew weary of travel. He asked for one last entrance,
homebound. The door frame shattered. The panels of the door
powdered to settling dust. He asked to enter the heart he had
wandered from long ago. His access denied, after having seen the
entire world, he had never truly wandered, until now. Though every
door in the spanning wastes was open to him, there was no longer a
point in passing through any solitary one of them: freedoms found.
Ensconced
Swamped. Spanked. Spent. Seeds
Of pomegranate caught in throat.
I am owned. I am honed. I am centipede
Of multi-task. Centered in this tall closet
Of municipal impotence—no real power—
I do not sign the checks. Furthermore, I see
A palm at the end of the mind in front of me.
I wonder how he wrote that. His walks home
After insurance. Pre-pubuscent,I walked
In Lanett, AL down a sidewalk punctuated
With dogwoods to a snowcone stand.
I was always walking on white petals.
In the memory I was not spent—I had
Intent. Recently, the digital analog inside
Me seems too liquid and never finds
Its alarm. Shimmer, stammer, waver,
Thrum. I am among those sound waves
Under pressure. Burps or farts or whistles.
Pitch and clamor. I miss most things, but most
Of all I miss snowcone days, days purchased
In hell by succulence—not days of hell
Punctuated as the dogwood is by four
Burns, one on each leaf, and the cluster
In its center administrating all life,
All injury, all supple subtlety—I am not
Convinced that this life is about achieving
Enlightenment before death—I am more
Convinced that this life is burns and flowers,
Snowcones and seeds, centipedes
Climbing towers of office buildings.
It is simply an expression of being.
I know you all know you know this but do you.
As long as he remembered, he always had the door. It was
cumbersome, awkward. He carried it on his back. Would that it
would have been a window. See, doors come with decisions,
responsibilities. The door, once slung off his back and planted into
the ground, could be opened to any imaginable location. When broke,
he could portal himself into bank vaults. When in danger, he could
portal away to some beautiful suite in a luxury resort overlooking
gorgeous seas. He covered every major monument. He traveled to
every exotic locale. Every great citadel on the planet. Several times
he mispronounced a location and landed in the wrong place: the
bottom of the ocean, the guts of a volcano, hovering beside the moon,
amidst a pride of predators on a grassy plain. He was, so far, always
able to recover. The door became heavier through the years. Its
frame began to crack, the grain in its ancient wood flaking and
wrangled. He grew weary of travel. He asked for one last entrance,
homebound. The door frame shattered. The panels of the door
powdered to settling dust. He asked to enter the heart he had
wandered from long ago. His access denied, after having seen the
entire world, he had never truly wandered, until now. Though every
door in the spanning wastes was open to him, there was no longer a
point in passing through any solitary one of them: freedoms found.
Ensconced
Swamped. Spanked. Spent. Seeds
Of pomegranate caught in throat.
I am owned. I am honed. I am centipede
Of multi-task. Centered in this tall closet
Of municipal impotence—no real power—
I do not sign the checks. Furthermore, I see
A palm at the end of the mind in front of me.
I wonder how he wrote that. His walks home
After insurance. Pre-pubuscent,I walked
In Lanett, AL down a sidewalk punctuated
With dogwoods to a snowcone stand.
I was always walking on white petals.
In the memory I was not spent—I had
Intent. Recently, the digital analog inside
Me seems too liquid and never finds
Its alarm. Shimmer, stammer, waver,
Thrum. I am among those sound waves
Under pressure. Burps or farts or whistles.
Pitch and clamor. I miss most things, but most
Of all I miss snowcone days, days purchased
In hell by succulence—not days of hell
Punctuated as the dogwood is by four
Burns, one on each leaf, and the cluster
In its center administrating all life,
All injury, all supple subtlety—I am not
Convinced that this life is about achieving
Enlightenment before death—I am more
Convinced that this life is burns and flowers,
Snowcones and seeds, centipedes
Climbing towers of office buildings.
It is simply an expression of being.
I know you all know you know this but do you.
Joseph Victor Milford is the host of The Joe Milford Poetry Show and
teaches English, Philosophy, and Creative Writing at Georgia Military College in
Fairburn, Georgia. His work has been published in The Brooklyn Review, The
Ourobouros Review; Action, Yes; O! Tempora, and mudluscious. His collected
works, Cracked Altimeter: Volumes I, II, & III are available at BlazeVox Books.
teaches English, Philosophy, and Creative Writing at Georgia Military College in
Fairburn, Georgia. His work has been published in The Brooklyn Review, The
Ourobouros Review; Action, Yes; O! Tempora, and mudluscious. His collected
works, Cracked Altimeter: Volumes I, II, & III are available at BlazeVox Books.
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