Mark Fleckenstein ~ Five Poems

SOMETIMESRED SHOE IS JUSTRED SHOE

I

From where I wasn’t to now, it’s
the same damn riv­er twice two times over and clear
enough for the rocks to rec­og­nize the col­or yel­low and what
it means. If they wan­dered clos­er, we’d be friends.
Everything is water if you wait long enough.

II

From where he wasn’t to now, his life is untrue.
His days are instruc­tions from acci­dents. A river
twice the same. The rocks learned how to recognize
the col­or yel­low and what it means.
If they wan­dered clos­er, they’d be his friends.

Instructions from acci­dents, his life is untrue, his days twice
the same, a riv­er. From where he wasn’t
to now, the rocks learned they’d be friends. How to recognize
the col­or yel­low, what it means.
And that if you wait long enough, every­thing is water.

~

THE RED SHOES WILL NOT PERFORM TONIGHT

The act of her anger, of
the anger she felt then
not turn­ing to him
- Robert Creeley, from “Goodbye”

She sits not as know­ing. The red shoes
Will not per­form tonight. The blood rage,
a room of famil­iar music cal­cu­lates flesh
mean­ing not words, but ges­tures: a hand sewn to teeth,
what she could. A ques­tion, emo­tion­al and argu­ing, between what and what.

~

SOLILOQUY FOR ONE SHOE AND THE COLOR RED

One shoe, the remains of words
from three days ago. Do not
imag­ine light, vagaries, nuances of air pausing
over, just past, cement­ed, movement.
There is still there. Just as red as near where

it gath­ers. His sev­er­al still­born sib­lings, alike
in their think­ing, how they’d hold him,
con­tin­ue to do nothing.
Milk, rocks, coal, whisper
neath the sheets. His sleep

many miles from where she
stood. Simply white, a necklace
of hum­ming­birds, spar­rows, blue jays.
Flight, hers, photographed,
black then white. always photographed.

~

IMAGING CHICAGO

He tried to embrace a moon
In the Yellow River.
–Ezra Pound, from “Epitaphs”

The moon
over­laid with frost, star-bled ghost-clouds.
Spidery, silk-black and warm to the eye, unsullied
breath­ing, dream-calmed, she lay. He thinks of her as where.
Maybe wrong­ly. Affectionate trou­ble, his. Pennies for opened eyes.

~

SOLO PRAYER

Touch. Touched.
A mis­han­dled com­pli­ment, awk­ward wakened
desire. The sixth degree of fondness.
Prayer beads fin­gered, slow­ly articulated
dust, mur­mur­ing, rote. A mir­ror. The last pen­ny in its pocket.

~

Mark Fleckenstein was born in Chicago. Five states, a B.A. in English and MFA in Writing lat­er, set­tled in Massachusetts. Twice nom­i­nat­ed for a Pushcart Prize, he’s pub­lished four books of poet­ry: Making Up The World (Editions Dedicaces, 2018), God Box (Clare Songbird Publishing, 2019), A Name for Everything (Cervena Barva Press, 2020), and Lowercase God (forth­com­ing, Unsolicited Press, 2022), and five chap­books: The Memory of Stars, (Sticks Press, 1995), I Was I, Drowning Knee Deep, (Sticks Press, 2007), Memoir as Conversation (Unsolicited Press, 2019), A Library of Things (Origami Poetry Project, 2020), and Small Poems (Origami Poetry Project, 2021).