VOICEMAIL POEMS

Lambs Ear and Lavender - Tonee Mae Mol by VOICEMAIL POEMS

Bluster - Ola Faleti by VOICEMAIL POEMS

Make me

dim-witted. One

of those days where

I can’t bare it—the hum

of madness. My belly wreaking

havoc up and down my spine,

intestines in a knot.

Garlic! Disgusting! or maybe

you called it gross & I called it

get me out of here.

A different morning: I’m spinning

sex between my fingers.

Cavorting with an old pillow

case hoping you’ll come along

and lift my top.

As a kid I would peel the skin

off of grapes with my two front teeth

and gently push the innards

into my cheek with my tongue

keeping it safe before coming

down on it with a hard chew. Pulpy

swallow & the great disappointment:

here was a truly valuable soft thing

that I had worked hard for

& didn’t know what to do with.

————————————–

Hannah Rubin called us from Los Angeles, CA.

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It's a bus stop in South America

And crossing five lanes of traffic

At ten in the morning.

It's quiet,

More than we were expecting.

The taxi is late for arrival and I am thankful for every second.

It's not knowing the language

And our tensions so high,

A tennis court in my chest.

Love was being rewritten in my head

You were becoming the epitome of sacrifice.

You asked me what I would answer if you pledged me to marry you.

I said I’d wait a few years

And that was the correct response.

It’s a man in a bulletproof vest asking you the intention of your visit,

To give her hope.

We cross out of the city.

There are dogs on rooftops,

We are sharing headphones

And the glass begins to fog in the humid jungle evening.

Whatever home there is left

I find it as I lay my head on your shoulder.

There is a song humming subtly over the foreign soap opera on the TV.

It’s not quite your taste

But it is my favorite.

You will be able to sleep on the plane

And I won't ever again for the next two years.

————————————–

Ky Pacheco called us from Flagstaff, AZ.

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This is what you are

missing Melissa – dust turned to waves

in the desert – okra coming up two months

too late – a forward-breaking gate opening

into someone else’s field – I walk by

a window and I don’t understand how little I see

you – but so clearly the wasp backing out

of a hole inside a long-dead

tree – when we were children we lived

with our grandparents and I remember without

sadness mostly the sound of tires screaming into

the street – the porch light welcomes

whatever intercepts it – I praise

insistence – I kiss

my love because our best friend died

when we were 5 years old – a brain tumor –

and then again at 7, 11, 17…43 – bodies

killing themselves by growing

beyond their own capacity – I’m building

a bed for our visitors – it’s infuriating how little

I understand about re-joining wood already broken

piece by piece – anticipate everything

I hear God saying to no one – I’m still listening

when you stop, for a moment, breathing

in your sleep – I’m recognizable

now as a part of the man who made me –

every man is a suspect – inside my own mouth

I’m annoyed by who I cannot seem to be –

do you miss this Melissa – every part of our body

is ash aching to be reminded it is ash – unlike fire

reaching through the face of every forest

in order to be incited by wind or offered

some relief – I’ve learned to flinch

by standing absolutely still – it isn’t death exactly living

without you – the purpose of a rope

is to borrow someone else’s strength – that’s why

I’m calling you – when I pray I hear nothing

so clearly as our new voice

singe-scoured and full of disbelief –

————————————–

TC Tolbert called us from Tucson, AZ.

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There are few mornings like this –

When the tumble day slows

and the sweltering July heat subsides;

when memories of last night’s fire show

resonate with a still-first sense of wonder.

The footfall of Fatherhood feels fine underneath;

I am comfortable here, at peace with a

stirring that has often lingered in the quiet process of thinking.

My daughter turns her eyes aware,

Expecting the dance of color in the thick night sky,

and utters with perfect sincerity the answer her mother and I

had first provided to her own plea for more “firewoooorrrks!”

“Later, next year,” she repeats.

She seems to understand –

just as she is profoundly unaware that stirring

in her mommy’s womb just now, the slightest mobility towards life

of her first sibling yet to be born.

The sky creeps thoughtfully,

grateful it seems that the booms have subsided,

for now – until “Later, next year.”

The clouds pass lightly as we look upward

to dream of a better place.

This unsummer in its brilliant disguise –

cool, elusive, uncharted.

The tongues amongst the people

do not complain of lasting heat

nor of humidity.

Instead, the cool, soft morning greets them,

allowing children to play.

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Dan J. Kirk called us from Pittsburgh, PA.

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barking up the right trees

stuck on the double branch

don’t climb if you can’t get down

if you can’t get down

better learn to

jump

the kids are so back

vlog squad with baby teeth

sucking back cinnamon

getting pantsed by their dads

tamogotchi death hits all seven stages

and everyone knows

that the moon is made of cheese

that green eggs go great

on a ham sandwich

that cyber bullying

is cooler when everyone is doing it

slip-&-slide into stardust

along greenwood grass

burning the summer

at both ends

there’s glass in the pool

marco polo cut short

feet cut deep

red & blue sunburns

on chlorine skin

remember when sunscreen

used to work

the first time

fallen hotdog

soldier slipped

between truck slats

hunger driven dance-moves

filled with

cruel intentions

no amount of ketchup

can cure a broken heart

but a viral video

is a bandaid solution

for missing lunch

category is horse

category is narwhal

category is charades

is easy when every answer

is the right answer

guess flamingo

guess spider

guess where your hamster went

I promise you’ll be happy

with the results

The kids are so back

but seriously

don’t climb a tree

if you don’t know how

to get down

or if your mom can’t

find the ladder

but by some act of god

if you find yourself up there

just close your eyes

try and remember

how to

jump

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Morgan Tessier called us from Toronto, Ontario.

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The leaving was such that each apple

in the orchard glassed over into ghost-form

on a single night. Centers rotted, dropped out,

only translucent orbs at the end of wooded knots remained.

A buck arrives, noses them to the ground.

His only want: to hear the shatter. First my grandmother,

then my brother. A permanent Autumn settles across my face.

Brinks become a fabric to dress in.

I practice sewing parts of my body shut:

the mouth, an ear, the space between my fingers.

At the edge of the orchard I find an owl.

Bring my hands around the middle of the algid body,

between my palms it moves as dead things move.

Still, I’m gentle as I walk the owl out of the orchard

to the place of bramble and stumps. Lay the bird out like a boat,

like a baby in the arms, like a dirge.

Slow gold light slips,

the night freeze blackens fruit trees.

I continue to visit the owl. The spiders come.

The flies, too. For a moment one of the owl’s eyes opens.

I look through the eye into the back of his death,

parts of flight and story leak out.

The collapse of the left lung: green.

The collapse of the right lung: sky.

I’ve only ever had one good dream

in 46 years of bad dreams and it was of sleeping

in a moon field with my daughter while friends

placed inocybe between my teeth.

The eye of the owl closes.

The buck says it’s peaceful here, to be with you like this.

I don’t say anything because I don’t speak anymore.

Within a streak of light, wasps fly out of the ground

as leaves fall in the orchard.

I become a ghost apple at the nose of a buck.

————————————–

Kelly Gray called us from Camp Meeker, CA.

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I’m waiting for the tram, picking plums

but really what I’m doing is looking, longingly

higher up where most of the fruit is sitting ripe.

A man approaches —

bald but for a crown of white hair, lightweight vest, faded tattoos

of an old sailor, two breasty mermaids with red lips.

Do you want me to pull down the branch, he asks

and I say yes please thank you

and he does

and suddenly I’m ensconced in the leaves, enveloped by the tree.

I pick the plums one at a time, each a little ball of orange red fruit.

That’s all for now, I say, and he starts to let go— then reconsiders.

He pulls the branch back down

takes matters into his own hands. His wide fingers

grab fistfuls of fruit and drop them in my bag.

Just as many fall to the ground and there are errant leaves and twigs,

all component parts of the tree are now there, in my bag, in pieces.

What a joy, to seize something entirety in pursuit of the one sweet part,

the part that could be crushed by a closing palm.

What a delight, to move with abandon, to ignore precision,

to choose clear cutting over particular picking.

Could my own hands claim what’s in front of them so confidently?

Could they take so completely?

I run into the street to catch the tram,

whose yellow doors are already swinging open.

————————————–

Ashira Morris called us from Sofia, Bulgaria.

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In front of the laundromat

a cigarette grows out

of stub and ash, smoke

seeps from lungs

back into sticky-dry

tobacco, red hot cherry

backs away from filter,

reshapes as fire, jets back

into bic lighter, gas

condenses into fluid.

Came back unsmoked

to haunt our past

selves down. Almost

a room in the outskirts,

we write each other

out. Eyes like wildness,

your torso tree trunk, we

careless pass a bottle

of warm stolen vodka.

Sing songs of chipmunks,

chase each other up plum

trees, over roofs

of cars, fluff each others

tails before we scamper

through the oaken

night to bury acorns.

Came back to teach us

how to make

our bodies out of muddy leaves, shape

our faces from

a pliant clay. Crop

vineyard hair, cattail

braids, let snakes

grow as they may.

Pluck river stone

out of the water,

become ourselves

a river. Chisel cloven

feet for gravel dancing.

Came back to sing

again I think,

together. Seek

each other out

by scent, taste

clove smoke. Dig

up the acorns,

and with our fingers

dirt-caked set them

shiny in our mouths

as teeth and gilding

for our crowns.

————————————–

Allegra Wilson called us from Santa Rosa, CA.

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