Juliet Cook

 

PLANCHETTE
CATARACT
SWAMP CREATURE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PLANCHETTE

 

Something is wrong with me.

 

I can't make things happen.

 

I'm trapped inside a little glass bunny.

I quiver inexplicably,

but never move smoothly across.

All I do is quiver and then I

 

                                    swerve madly.

 

My progress is not reasonable.

My progress is not measurable.

My progress is not memorable

 

                                    until I am so wildly

                                    erratic that I blur

                                    towards the erotic

                                    (kinky).

 

I'm trapped inside a glass eye.

Red-rimmed.  Red-painted.

 

(You want to lick me.

                                    You want to put me all the way inside

                                    your mouth. Clean me up. Stop me rolling.)

 

I zoom across a black board with white letters

like one possessed.  I fervently spell out

the same word again and again and then I

get stuck

 

on your tongue

inside my own head

somewhere small and dark

 

and so crowdedÉ

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CATARACT

 

It was in my head like turbulence.

 

Like milky aquamarine

or bright jagged aquamarine

floating in a bowl of milk—

its edges are muted, but

still jagged when you tweeze it out.

 

Coccyx shattered like stained glass

hidden under a hoop skirt.

 

Seeping through the gauze

pad taped over a little girlÕs lazy eye.

 

The sound of something being mauled.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SWAMP CREATURE

 

Hagfish, guttural parrot quiche.

Aspiring literary darling, literati wannabe,

you disgust me with your rank desirousness

to swing with the highbrow hipster

whizzes of irony.  Piranha hybrids swim feebly

in shallow sockets.  They need to be set free

before they need to be trawled

before they are floating across

a ferociously trendy flat screen

in a mall in a giant gumball machine.

Your globules have always been misshapen;

stop trying to roll it spherically. Stop trying to fit

your whole hand into that metal slot

when you need some wiggle room.

Your little fingerÉ

 

Oozing stinkpot du jour.

Just because theyÕre neon orange doesnÕt mean theyÕre not

cookie cut outs.

Just because theyÕre the hue of gourmet

split pea soup.

 

Dragging the latest sweet & sour egg case behind them.

Pricking it open before it bursts.  Pulling out

the eyesore dumplings and hastily grooming them.

Dressing them in nudie suits to hide the festering slime.

 

Fermenting flora bedecked exotic grubs your cobbled-together phylum.

YouÕve fed on turnips, parsnips, red beets—

the bulbous misfits of the vegetable world, thinking,

ÔWhat if theyÕre a cross between Hieronymous Bosch and borscht

blended from the bruised runts of the red beet litterÉÕ?