Sodom, Sodom
look back, look back
you will be Rorschach
a print of a man
so slit the blinds gently go ahead be my guest
and nudge the veins open to peek at your worth
the truck across the driveway, a barricade
its motor left running, pinned, wouldn’t you say
while scorchers with torches stampede through town
winds from the shipyards fan the brimstone
poisons break against the seawall at the end of your blood
the flood plains swallow the runoff of the wicked
who gasp incantations, a sea dead of sorcerers
knocked out by the whitecaps, skinned clean on the rocks,
and hardened to the landscape of a chokehold frontier
with tight leather gloves left behind dropped carefully.
Ken Been is a former speechwriter and copywriter. His poetry and prose are often set in Detroit, where he currently writes. He has placed poems in Passages North, Midstream and Chunga Review. More recently, his short story, “Iodine,” is forthcoming in Hospital Drive (University of Virginia).
the patterns do not change __ __ __ __
they are misremembered __ __ __ __
cool hand __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
separate heat __ __ __ __ __ __
Be gentle don’t bump it I’ve got Andromeda centered
In the viewfinder but it will already have shifted slightly
Gliding its trillion stars and their moons in millimeters
Behind the local legends painted ancient on the dome
but ask me again how much
I care about the other mouths
that could call my name.
We’d get home, and he’d go back to weaseling money out of Mom
and squandering it on things that were smokable or fit in a syringe,
on what wasn’t bread. The little money he made came from
selling our family’s things: Mom’s jewelry, TV and VCR
swallows actin’ drunk
swimmin’ overhead
chasin’ each other ‘round
like brand new lovers
stumblin’ out the bar at 2 am
I command subjects, turn math to English, history
to lunch, govern teachers and students alike in
my slow crawl through middle and high school
periods.
We are all God’s little playthings. Or else why are we on a ball.
I had the goods,
the lowdown, the skinny,
the whole truth
and nothing but.
I was dangerously
in the know.
If you listen, really listen, their voices come back.
They start to tell you about places you’ve
never been, about things you want with
a ferocity that scares you sometimes. They make
sense. Sit with them on the couch and watch
a movie you know is bad.
Only connect
indeed. Dressed and buckled in
like chefs or psychiatric patients,
they shuffle and lunge.