Fault Lines Poetry

THE DISROBING

Tony Pfannenstiel — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 07:50:59 +0000

Deep within monastic walls
he wore his thick beliefs

like monks’ robes,
scratchy and warm.

They were worn. The adolescent
inside decided to disrobe.

Warned,
he did not listen.

He tossed off his beliefs
like heavy blankets.

Then he was naked
but free

to choose
new or none.

But now he is older
Winds blow colder

He can barely remember
how warm he used to feel.

Tony Pfannenstiel
Oregon

TO SAVE LOVE’S CITY

Tony Pfannenstiel — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 07:13:26 +0000

A casino economy of promise and poison—
how many whiskeys and cigarettes
for a chance meeting of eyes, for sex?

How many fresh cell-deaths for a dance
with the buxom self-mutilator at the jukebox, or

kids born limbless in the trade of risk
for that armor-piercing punch spent uranium 
gives before its vapor’s breathed in? Here I am

sipping the night’s last Jameson, wagering
the moon will start up its magnetic rotor
again before much longer and spark

my heart’s next telegram across the sky,
to a woman sick with dental mercury,
drunk on love from a leaden jug,

dry where she’s kept desire’s waters
parted from the seafloor of her bed.

What potion have I not tried yet? What
hazard to guess? Is there a remedy
left for the breath’s fiefdoms’ decay?

The moon in the window lowers it wires—
time for me to place my bet, to play
along with all the others who know this

or not. I’m tired. But sleep
seems senseless, not dangerous enough—

still, its dream-caves might be our chance
to hold up, long enough, sufficiently 

deep in the hills to still save love’s city
should the siege of our dreads ever give way.

Jed Myers
Washington

ANOTHER SANTA ANA

Tony Pfannenstiel — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 06:52:28 +0000

If you've ever lived inland,
     you know its scream.

This cat-in-heat
scratch-the-doorpost wind.
              It bangs the gate all night, wrestles coyotes

down from the hills,
yanks your sheets off,
              finds you reaching for a lover in your sleep.

      It shakes the eucalyptus,
      jabbers the crows,

riddles the chain link fence
with tumbleweeds.

             A plastic bag levitates.
             Barking dog.

Sand on the window blinds.
        A brown bird thumps the glass and is gone.

Petra Whitaker
California

REBOOT

Tony Pfannenstiel — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 06:31:53 +0000

Unhook me

from the iPhone

the iPod

the iMac

the I V.

Deliver me

from the iWork

the iWeb

the iWireless

the ICU.

Free me

from IT,

and the me

myself and I

the i, i, i.

Leah Stenson
Oregon