#cj evans

[rhymaes]

“To Peel Sod or Muck in Reed Roots with Catfish Bellies,” CJ Evans

[rosaurasaurio]

[largethingslargerthings]

Meditative Week of Poetry: CJ Evans

No drowning no opiates. No body no hands in this body no fingers in this body brutish no. No bombers, no. Neither enemies nor entreaty against force: instead say eased to an ending. Say eased into it. No sharp report no red lights lit underground no claxon no. Say a type

of mending, even if it was too late for mending. Not like an animal left to street, god not like the little ones with cracked lips. No drowning, no teeth, no stutter in aim, no simple neglect no. No hands in this body, no bouncing betties sculpting this field, no new virus. Say: the light there

and a smell like strawberries. Say simply even snow. No ordnance no, no knife no, please no knife in my body no kalashnikov suicide strychnine no. Please no. No more hands in my body.

[hush-syrup]

Honestly, all I had was the only lie—that I could be the one who evades. Sparrows don’t fall, no owl falls. Left behind are her thin hands, a box full of ribbons, a bolt, a knife. Photographs with anybody’s faces. Hungry letters, angry letters about a time and people and love that is not. No image holds its meaning within itself. Not one dandelion fell. Please. Something did happen here.

From The Dandelions in the Moment and Then by CJ Evans

[aristotlemcdonald]

Penitent

Long ago my knuckles mended, and I forgot how to want to clash again. I was once hipshot and erratic, but now I’m glass,

the slicked leavings of earth. Oils from hands mar me no more than a smudge. I’ll not melt for a thousand years. I’ll not shatter

but for fire or force. I’ve realized there’s no glory in pliancy, no succor in the softness of clay or breast, for to be supple

is to wait for bruises to rise. And I forgot how to want to fight, but tyrants are walking around so heavily.

All I wanted was to be in your blood, and be quiet. But soldiers dare me to hazard out in the world with my prison face,

the one that shifts with the shadows, contorts, lacks control. My hands won’t lie softly in my lap any longer, for listeners

and liars are close. All I wanted was to be a splinter under your skin, to be wrapped in your body and wait for you to heal over me.

[sourhearts]

Penitent

by CJ Evans       

Long ago my knuckles mended, and I forgot how to want

to clash again. I was once hipshot and erratic, but now I'm glass,

the slicked leavings of earth. Oils from hands mar me no more

than a smudge. I'll not melt for a thousand years. I'll not shatter

but for fire or force. I've realized there's no glory in pliancy,

no succor in the softness of clay or breast, for to be supple

is to wait for bruises to rise. And I forgot how to want

to fight, but tyrants are walking around so heavily.

All I wanted was to be in your blood, and be quiet. But soldiers

dare me to hazard out in the world with my prison face,

the one that shifts with the shadows, contorts, lacks control.

My hands won't lie softly in my lap any longer, for listeners

and liars are close. All I wanted was to be a splinter under your skin,

to be wrapped in your body and wait for you to heal over me.

[poem-locker]

CJ Evans, “Ghost Poem”

Here is my solitary city. This island of steel and avenue. Towers with skeletons of organ

pipes that pierce the clouds’ flocking, but I can’t find the keys and predators are behind

the doors. In the park, the statues of foxes still stand. Their plinths cracked by roots

of dwarf ebonies, and Pallas cormorants nest in their jaws. The sky broke through the aviary’s

roof and the swifts all went to sea or went invisible. My church’s windows house zeros.

Its obelisks illegible from ivy. Every fence, every wall was left standing, but ladders from

that day lean against them. The watchlights have run, finally, out of fuel, and the grass

gone wild. This is my city. This island of iron. Now, the fountain sprays for the packs of dogs,

I haven’t slept well since, and I might be sorry. There were never crocodiles before,

but now they’ve come. Jackrabbits live in the foundry’s moldings, the nights are full

of wind, and I might regret my part in it. But peonies grow in the belltower, and I can’t

see my feet for all the irises, bowing when I pass. I am waiting for the buildings to fall.

Yesterday I saw a red-crested crane—they’ve been gone for over a hundred years. Here

is my city, anew. This island of fur and bark. Seas break the same, but now the ferns

and dandelions have returned and the crocodiles are still sleeping. Sometimes I miss their

voices, but last night I heard the swifts. Full of their thousand wings, I heard the sky.

[universeofviolets]

All I wanted was to be a splinter under your skin, to be wrapped in your body and wait for you to heal over me.

CJ Evans.