Friday, December 17, 2010

Fort Edward

an old pulp mill
wrapped in the arms of sugar maples
sweet gum
hart's-tongue, and roseroot

white-tailed deer

the manascus
churning dark and violent
under a low, seasick sky

© 2009 Ag Synclair
(Originally published in Gloom Cupboard #114)

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Untitled Love Poem

the poet Jamison Gilley once told me
of his penchant for lying naked
in a fetal position

on the cold tile floor
in the bathroom
of his Manhattan loft.

unable to move for hours
waiting to feel something
anything

and feeling nothing, seeing
nothing, being
nothing.

and I thought
if I could lie down
on some milky black night

and detach my retinas
swiftly, like opening a vein
I could use my mind's eye

to see
how you pulled me in
gutted me

disembowled me
and bled me out
how you opened me

                                     skillfully


© 2010 Ag Synclair
(Originally published in Gloom Cupboard #118, Amphibi.us)

Ten Hours North Of Daytona At A Rest Stop on I-95

pissing away
three cups of
acrid, black
vending machine coffee
alongside men in wife beaters
who force deep coughs
and spit gobs
of tobacco staind phlegm
into a magical piss trough
where all things
suddenly
become equal.

© 2009 Ag Synclair
(Published in Calliope Nerve 4 January, 2010)

Coeur d'Alene


I wondered aloud (to myself)
why the two of us-on a train from Chicago-
bound for the coast,

should be seated alone
at separate, impeccably set tables for four
in the dining car of the Union Pacific #1401?

Each of us with our paperbacks, junk bags,
and frayed notebooks arranged perfectly
on white linen tablecloths

yet looking tired and worn
beside Lalique crystal and ornate candlesticks
brave enough to live on a train.

I watched as you chewed the cap of your pen
and hurried to raise your glass
whenever the car would sway too far to one side,

and I imagined the possibilities-a table shared by strangers-
the way they seat you in Jazz clubs
if you come alone.

We are lovers of books and trains
sharing a table and a destination
with hours to kill, and poems to write,

and in between bites of your pen cap-
where plastic mingles with prose-it would occur to me
that there must be very few travelers heading West tonight

as a new arrival to the dining car
stops at the table in front of me
and removes a paperback, and a dog-eared journal

from a shoulder bag of some unnatural color
and arranges them carefully
atop the table where she will dine
alone.

© 2007 A.g. Synclair
(First Published in The Foundling Review, July - 2009)

Monday, December 13, 2010

H

suppose an impressionist
dared immortalize you
on stretched canvas and easel

brushstrokes damp in sepia
and something called
Zap Green

I could frame you
closer to the bone
than marrow

your air
the resurrection
of a hanged man

© 2010 A.g. Synclair
(Originally published by Haggard & Halloo Publishing, December - 2010)