THREE POEMS BY GARETH LEE



          NIHILISM NOW



          Each day you nurse a julep; watch mackerel go on a string; they swing; meander a
          cobbled path; oh that uphill street; lips so hooked; we find the smell offensive;
          dictating the extent to which we enjoy the sounding of the bells; the bicycle rush and
          clamor; toll; the open wind chimes; that shift of breeze; and then floodlights are let
          like shoal; and then it is sundown; which is necessary; to avoid a uniform lifestyle;
          our starched clothes slacken; or is it our bodies that lessen; is it our

          or that idea that each night we obtain a glass of absinthe; of rain and aniseed; a
          needed drink; conjures up something slurred; and we are so dopey; and the tourists
          in hotel rooms; they are also dopey; and the tattooed men, fresh off the boat; all are
          also dopey; whilst the hip ones on disco dope stare themselves down; stumped,
          they emanate from the ceiling; they meander with their mouths; to say nothing; of
          their fathers; is their business; is there

          privilege; is there a theory to be spared; is there anything, inquires the adjunct, who
          has snapped a chalk into two; seen it snap into two; and thus traumatized, I can offer
          my all, my sinuses, my grief; and it is customary to find this moment appealing; it is
          pleasurable to part with a gift my company; but I am reluctant to be; I am weakening
          at the knees; only with force can I salivate at the value of your presence; only after I
          grit my teeth can I actively experience pain; and how I want to part

          from the previous like the hum and hiss from a heater; and generosity is the idea;
          take, for instance, my hair; take, for amplitude, my money; and after all is spent my
          hometown shall extend its greetings; its secrets shall initiate us in, we who are
          eager to be bold; even though you and I refrain; you and I can assert our strengths;
          nurse a still moment; see how our families have done

          this season; see our brothers, they are teething; our sisters, they are expecting; our
          friends, they departed; their friends, they let go; drank pints; in the pew, their parents
          stand for Christ; the hippy commune stands for Buddha; the badge stands for order;
          and, finally, we stand for nothing; but for nights when we meet someone, who takes
          us stumbling to an apartment; who unravels as we unravel; who speaks as we
          speak



          PARANOIA IN THE N.


          Suddenly the broadcast voice on the radio inflects a Southern accent. In this
          context, we go out. It is morning on the hill. On the hill, there is a lucid incline. And a
          freeze has cleared the atmosphere, and the light has cleaned us up, and we
          abstract our general statement, brace the lucid incline, and slide.

          The weather, with its breeze, is anesthesia. The weather excavates some snow off
          the ground and invites us like ice. And so we go back in, where the broadcast
          voices on the radio inflect Southern accents, where we lunch. Thus, with guacamole
          dye, my shirt is stained. I am the slide, anesthetized, now dirtied

          with guacamole dye. Now I never can be that lay male innocent with no need for
          priestly help. Now I am done for. On the broadcast radio, the right wing invites the
          left wing in for a clap. It is simple. It is symbolic. Over cards, I see your sloe gin and
          meet it with tequila. We get drunk early. We listen intently.

          We shut the caller up and determine our combat mode. We wave the Union flag
          and napkins, our napkins, are stained with guacamole. The caller maintains his
          broken household. The caller keeps the native base intact. I want to shut the caller
          up and give the bastard his papa. I want to join him in singing a duet.



          CONFESSION


          When size in itself becomes a measure of missiles, it seems right to smoke West
          Africa in a tongue-licked narrow. It seems right to interact with its endangered
          wildlife, to breathe the species in.

          War is a universal scary thing, my vision being a glaze that has darkened with each
          intake of wine. It figures. Like an absolute, nothing, not war, not vision, is absolute.
          It darkens with wine.

          In you, I inspire caution—you whose lashes pitch me to the floor. And I am Che
          Guevara. I am the most unholy of septic tanks. I am your white barnacle goose,
          descended from crustaceans. I am catholically fundamental.

          The adversary is a closed system. And if out of the quarrel with closed systems, we
          leave, and if out of the quarrel with leaving, we find our roots, and if out of the quarrel
          with our roots, we smoke ganja, then there is respite. There is that option. And if
          out of the quarrel with there, we come back here, then here’s a bonus. Here’s the
          open injection of openness.


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Gareth Lee took his MFA at Brown. His work has appeared (or is forthcoming) in Brown Literary Review, Can We Have Our Ball Back?, Columbia, DIAGRAM, Denver Quarterly, Green Mountains Review, GutCult, Northwest Review, Pom2, POOL, Spinning Jenny, and ZYZZYVA.


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