ᴛᴡᴏ ᴘᴏᴇᴍꜱ ʙʏ ꜱᴀᴍᴜᴇʟ ꜱᴛʀᴀᴛʜᴍᴀɴ
𝑶𝑴𝑵𝑰𝑺𝑯𝑨𝑴𝑩𝑳𝑬𝑺
Some nights, when on a tag along with the chrysalis, many avenues present themselves.
Some venues meet the scimitar on a cutting board, while others are the fire that cooks the fish –
saucepan eyes unblinking as it’s tossed into the pot.
A red ant colony is up in arms over their hill being divested – raccoons cry in impatience while on a scavenger hunt for pickled herring.
We’ve yet to witness omnishambles of brain spraying on the inside of a microwave – we’re not seasoned enough for that.
Lastly, we’re thankful for the incendiary agents in action – flitting through conduits and capillaries to seed infection.
The discord between mind and our own matter is abominable, little fires that can be prevented.
//
𝑫𝑹𝑬𝑨𝑴𝑰𝑵𝑮 𝑶𝑭 𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑵𝑨𝑰𝑨𝑫
After the poem “1.8” from “Sonnets to Orpheus” by Rainer Maria Rilke.
Recounting the steps to our plight is the same as drowning above ground, submerged in the spectral pall culled from our lesser selves.
Two separate annals converge over a great expanse, incisors imprisoned in the rubble of triviality –
bent on destructing each other – reprisal, followed by the inevitability of death.
Staring at my glass, a minute water nymph casts a web of cosmic tinkering, sentiment clinking around.
These silhouettes meander in irreverence, backs turned, shifting one brackish helix after another.
Paroxysms and their antecedents are caged in shrieking mosaics, fresher than the fish in the lake,
steamrolling until history caves in on itself – box of ambiguous intimations.
Later, sleep comes easy to me, light as wisps of terry cloth.
The next morning, I’ll go to the sink with a countenance warped by lesions in the memory.
The naiad will rise from the sink in swirls of barnacle and brine – cause my throat to freeze shut, a reliquary of nostalgia.
//
[Author Bio: Samuel Strathman is a poet, author, educator, and editor at Cypress: A Poetry Journal. Some of his poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Train, White Wall Review, Quadrant, and elsewhere. His first chapbook, "In Flocks of Three to Five" will be released by Anstruther Press later this year. He lives in Toronto, Ontario.]