{"id":8726,"date":"2015-01-30T09:00:20","date_gmt":"2015-01-30T14:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gadflyonline.com\/home\/?p=8726"},"modified":"2015-02-04T09:32:25","modified_gmt":"2015-02-04T14:32:25","slug":"between-veins-guaranteed-delivery-by-december-24th-and-other-poems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/between-veins-guaranteed-delivery-by-december-24th-and-other-poems\/","title":{"rendered":"Between Veins, Guaranteed Delivery by December 24th, and Other Poems"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"between<\/a><\/p>\n

Between Veins<\/h3>\n

Except for being a little heavier
\nThe air feels mostly the same,
\ncalling for sweatshirts instead of t-shirts.<\/p>\n

I walk up the hill
\nto the red wood siding house
\nthat once moved its driveway
\nhalf an inch over
\nsince it was on our property.
\nMy father watched men rake the gravel
\nin overcast filthy grey light
\nand said they were insane.<\/p>\n

Inside Mrs. Johnson wears her hair
\nin a blue-grey beehive
\nand her glasses grow her eyes
\ninto puddles of ink.
\nShe advises me to know the women,
\nto love the women
\nfor no particular reason
\nwhile nervously watching me
\nthrough the clouds of dust puffing up
\nas I rape music on her old or\u00a0antique accordion.<\/p>\n

Her husband teaches me to trap fish,
\nsays we don\u2019t take worms from the birds.
\nWe don\u2019t take
\nWorms from the birds.<\/p>\n

He and I walked the long walk
\nto the river,
\njumped the chipped paint pipes of the refinery,
\ncaught sunnies in chicken wire,
\nwater to our knees, and
\nsometimes the cops stopped on by,
\ntold us to get lost.
\nHe said they had no life,
\ngrumbling about higher crimes.
\nThen one day without cause
\nbetween the biting cold and snow\u2019s first fall,
\nhe died.<\/p>\n

I enjoy the warmth of mugs\u2014
\nlumpy clay and smooth ceramic
\nwith his wife
\nseveral times that winter.
\nShe teaches me
\nto read between the veins of the tea leaves.
\n\u201cYour fortunes not the bird, but its feathers and its prey\u201d<\/p>\n

Now I drain the river
\nof the long walk
\nmugful by mugful
\ngrumbling for that water to get lost.
\nShe can no longer make the boil
\nand I am old enough
\nto work the cold electric stove.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Guaranteed Delivery by December 24th<\/sup><\/h3>\n

Grey hounds grind their gold teeth,
\na chalky squeaking sound.
\nToo pliable to tear the flesh of feast,
\nlustrous impotent mouths.<\/p>\n

Their drool pools and drips
\nonto every city\u2019s loading docks
\nWhere they\u2019ve been forced to live.
\nAcidic and it bores a hole to the earth\u2019s basement
\nto reveal the flames of storage,
\nthe glow impelled
\nfloods upward in bestial distribution.<\/p>\n

Now everyone I know
\nis lost in the fire or its light.<\/p>\n

Now everyone I know
\nis a shiver in the basement
\nor a sweat bead in the attic.<\/p>\n

Now everyone I know
\nis lost in the fire or its light.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Baby Cries over Nothing and Breaks My Heart<\/h3>\n

From head to toe, the baby’s body squirmed\u2014a bug under attack. She curls up tightly and struggles. Trying to exert the force to disappear. She vanishes into herself and keeps exanimate. The evidence of this is in the moan. It squeaks from her throat, which sounds shrunk to half-size. She is wheezing. She has one balled up fist. Her toes curl as limbs contort. The child was lost in the thick of it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Hunter and the Human with a Rifle<\/h3>\n

The scent of mountain quail trapped
\nwithin a setters’ cold black nose.
\nAs jagged rocks slice his
\npaw’s pads,
\nstreaks of blood
\ndry up on branches
\nbent and grass
\npressed flat.
\nAin’t it like the artist
\nto always sign his craft?<\/p>\n

And ain’t it like that bastard man
\nto always steal the prize?<\/p>\n

Sucking meat off the bone
\nwhile the hunter
\nlicks his wounds like lovers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Drunk and the Dreamer<\/h3>\n

Had he walked in with a bonus,
\na raise, carnations, an affair\u2014
\none thing to satisfy
\nhis want to be needed,
\nher need to be wanted<\/p>\n

The house would creak, crack, and thaw out
\nLike ice cubes dropped into a glass
\nof iced tea\u2014snap, shard, and
\neventually attach
\nonto one another.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

David Remer is a native of the Hudson Valley, the heart of New York. It is a unique region where mountains scrape the sky and the roar of nature endlessly fights and fades against the trumpery of an unfortunate city. His work consists primarily of poetry and short stories and can be found in publications such as Chronogram. He is currently pursuing a bachelor\u2019s degree in Creative Writing. If you would like to know more, then remind yourself that privacy is a precious commodity in this interconnected world and enjoy the rest of your day.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Except for being a little heavier
\nThe air feels mostly the same,
\ncalling for sweatshirts instead of t-shirts.<\/p>\n

I walk up the hill
\nto the red wood siding house
\nthat once moved its driveway<\/p>\n

READ MORE.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":250,"featured_media":8912,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,219,199,217],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8726"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8726"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8949,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8726\/revisions\/8949"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}