poetry packet 2013

7/27/2019 Poetry Packet 2013

1/5

Poetry Packet

By Andrew Knox

Published August 13, 2013

40 Hours A Week

Monday

Comes like a disagreeable jarWith a lid that cuts a wide crescent across your palm.

Hold your breath and wrap around it. Gasp and release.

Call it a lousy bastard and give up. Try again.

Tuesday

Time for negotiation, a diplomatic solution,

Asking whoever is around to take a riot at it.If they succeed, its because you loosened it up for them.

If they fail, shuffle away, mumbling curses.

Wednesday

Mama says run it under hot water

For a couple minutes and more,But this only greases the alligator up.

Whatever you do, punch it in the nose.

ThursdayBang it on the edge of the table,

Flick the lid, pray away the friction.

Your uncle is a physics professor. He wrote the textbook.He doesnt answer your call. Fucking time zones.

FridayWake up hungry, desperation setting in.

Realization: go to the knife drawer.

One surgical strike, rapid decompression,Who wants pickled green beans?

Knox / 1


2/5

The Patron Saint of Blood Sugar

You hear me.

I call to you in the middle of the night,From the freezer, down the hall, into your bed,

Singing softly, reminding you that pint of Ben n Jerry's

That cold honey that tastes like cherries and butter,Gets more frostbitten every second

It's not in your mouth.

Doesn't matter what flavor

All variations of silky milk chocolate

Ripples of caramel, chunks of chewy detritus.It's all you ever need. Just one spoonful

has all the good news of 10,000 bibles

and a box of Cheerios. One spoonful.

Can't hurt.

I'm more than just a number

You think gets too high all the time.I only get high

when you can't find a friend

and confide in a Snickers bar instead.

I know I'm no good for you, but

The parts you hate about me are actually

Parts of yourself: Love Handles, HangingFlab,Your dizzy reaction when you realize

You either have too much or too little of me in your life

I'm as holy a ghost

as you'll ever catch.

So you pray to mewith your insulin pen

and tell me to behave

Behave, take it slow.

But you're the one who needs to be managed.

I'm your candy, Girl, and I got you wanting me.

Knox / 2


3/5

Hillside at Hippie School

At age seven

I was sentaway to the mines

to scour for littlewhite rocks we called

quartz.

We were going to

strike it rich

selling rocks for clocks.

But contracts happened

to fall through

on every scheme.

Then the war came.

Pinecone grenades.Spiked pit traps.

Slug-based bio-warfare.Enemy combatants buried

alive under piles of leaves.

Allegiances shiftedfrom recess to recess,

so nobody held

the chain link fence

at the top of the hillside

for more than a day.

This is what I

learned in 2nd grade.

Knox / 3


4/5

Coho, Sockeye

If I was then as now, I woulda probably won it.

They wait to tell us not to til we already done it.Second Grade Live, recessed with steep hills and pine cones,

leaves in a cyclone used to leave my mind blown.

My childhood was played out, laying out ten stacks,metric towers tall til they fell, show n tell, and then snacks,

sit criss cross apple sauce, made us all equal,

I was bored as dry erase on the classroom easel.Couldn't keep still til they fed me a Benadryl,

felt hella ill, semi-psychoactive pill, what's the deal?

Got bored with that riddle, hadda fidget a little,defenestrated self, coulda been a great escape,

but they caught me by my bootlace, turned me in,

two-faced, dim set, suit case, twin breath...

26 feet left. Constrain the remainder while

I feign a limp step. Office door, in press,

tell secretary why my trouble's their business.Don't need no witness, I'm a usual suspect, preset,

prone at recess to Pandora box a bees nest.

Principal asks me, would I jump off a bridge ifall my friends were lemmings? Irrelevant.

As if my friends would jump just for the hell of it.

I know if I apologize she might be wise to let me go,

but all this time, I've been staring out the windowat all of the things I love outside that make me sneeze.

Imagine the bodies we'll bury with the leaves off the trees!

Knox / 4


5/5

What It Do

It does this every other year.

Bergs form in the middle,branch out and consolidate

and come nearer with each

successive freezing eveninguntil it resembles a thin

sheet in the shape of

Australia upside down.

Fools let their children run free.

We don't know with certaintythat it won't hold their weight

but we holler threats across

the lake just to be safe.

Liability = Fun / Time.I fell in once, when parents

weren't watching but sister was.

Something pulled me in.

The vibe of elastic energy

reverberating through the plateand back to the origin of impact

where the thrown brick left a dent.

The battleship ka-sploosh or the

crinkling fizzle scratched intothe wake of each depth charge.

Ducks in a holding patterncome in for a landing and

skid their landing gear to a

stop. Pools form atop raftsthat break off the continent

and may remain rogue for

a week at best, but it willbe water again before you

know it.

Knox / 5

poetry packet 2013

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