Concussion by Janet Buck

Featured Writer: Janet Buck

Concussion

I'd love to look outside for horror
in glossy black -- its meal is here,
Jihad and gutted jellyfish,
side-dish full of blood beet soup.
Concussions reel from B-1Bs,
retorts to grief.
Bodies fall like sequins in the rising smoke.
Miasma boxed, then hurled back,
this battle ain't in theaters.
Bruce Willis isn't fixing fire,
punching comets with his hands.
This Armageddon,
decked in forking tomahawks,
bags of grain dropped
upon the waiting dead.
I dream of camels kicking sand,
humps of empty water bowls.
A fireman's helmet rocks in ash,
an unattended Faberge.
Missiles whistle by a cave.
Power in Kabul is down.
Spiders lay another egg.
Womb of terror has twins,
has twins, has twins, has twins.

The Tragic Anniversary

Six months down the gruesome road
of licking flames, of crashing towers --
nightmares swell like tumors
in a uterus too close to the child of grief
for scalpels of prayer to slice and lift.
I count 81 flags on a two-mile path.
One of them, broad banners
on an old man's scooter
painted the color of vanquished blood.
Cherry blossoms fall like snow.
The stoplight gives me time to think.
Innocence is not the silk it used to be.
Traffic moves as if it's drugged.
I watch him cross, scribble notes
across a crushed deposit slip.
Perhaps the bank is fuller now,
as we recall they took a sense,
entitlement says NPR
through speakers on the radio.
Pulled the rug, the table's cloth --
certain dishes shattered in uncertain ash.
Hands inside his winter gloves,
tender spikes of fingers curled
to make the reach his legs refuse.
Tossled hair of gray-white steel,
his Brillo zest scraping
at the scattered stones
that should have settled differently.
The cloth he waves,
symbiosis large as pride
inside the final withering.
His tires tired, still rolling
forward on the walk --
as he recalls another war
with swastikas for evening stars.

First Published in Identity Theory

Janet Buck, Ph.D. is the author of four collections of poetry. Her work has appeared in CrossConnect, Zang Spur Review, Pif Magazine, The Dakota House Journal, The Melic Review, Stirring, Countless Horizons, Ascent, Tapestry, The Rose & Thorn, Avatar Review, pith, Perihelion, In Motion, OffCourse, and hundreds of journals world-wide. In the year 2000, Janet was of ten U.S. poets to be featured at the "One Heart, One World" Exhibit at the United Nations Exhibit Hall in New York City. Her poem "Acrylic Thighs" was translated into five languages and paired with original artwork. The tour traveled to France, Australia, Vietnam, Brazil, and Japan. In 2001-2002, Buck's poetry is scheduled to appear in PoetryBay, The Montserrat Review, Runes, The Pedestal Magazine, Concrete Wolf, The Carriage House Review, Swagazine, PoetryRepairShop, Slow Trains, Verse Libre Quarterly, Wicked Alice, Facets, Southern Ocean Review, Artemis, The American Muse, and The Pittsburgh Quarterly. Recent awards include The H.G. Wells Award for Literary Excellence, First Place in Kimera's Poetry Contest 2001, Editor's Choice Award for Sol Magazine, and the 2001 Kota Press Anthology Prize. In 2001, Janet's poem "The Teapoy" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by The Pedestal Magazine. Janet Buck is a three-time Pushcart Nominee and the author of four collections of poetry. Her work has recently appeared in Three Candles, Red River, Pierian Springs, Stirring, PoetryBay, Offcourse, Ascent, The American Muse, and hundreds of journals world-wide. In 2002-2003 Buck's poetry is scheduled to appear in Zuzu's Petals Quarterly, Mississippi Review, Gin Bender, Artemis, The Montserrat Review, Recursive Angel, The Foliate Oak, Southern Ocean Review, The Pedestal Magazine, Coelacanth, Cordite, CrossConnect, and The Oklahoma Review.

For links to more of her work, see:

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