{"id":4059,"date":"2013-08-25T16:14:49","date_gmt":"2013-08-25T16:14:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sporkpress.com\/?p=4059"},"modified":"2013-08-25T16:14:49","modified_gmt":"2013-08-25T16:14:49","slug":"3-poems-by-brandon-kreitler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/2013\/08\/25\/3-poems-by-brandon-kreitler\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Poems || Brandon Kreitler"},"content":{"rendered":"

Other Side of the Sphinx<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Shafts of lamplight measure the city.<\/p>\n

The waitress approaches like a nurse.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a long dull heat, June without ides,<\/p>\n

and I think of the prom that must be going on somewhere,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

of the bulb faltering in the corner of the lobster tank,<\/p>\n

and how the failure of beauty to ruin<\/p>\n

is the failure of beauty to sustain these hours,<\/p>\n

threaded through with what desire becomes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Outside, a man flosses with a candy wrapper.<\/p>\n

The junction brims<\/p>\n

with the breathless clarity of its signage,<\/p>\n

like the vacuous halls of a night ward.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There and in the vagaries of this lobster-beneficent light<\/p>\n

the hours come. Let them come.<\/p>\n

Let them stand for sugar piling in a bowl,<\/p>\n

stowed against days washing out in onset.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Waltz<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The trees shed their long leaves like folded napkins.<\/p>\n

A dresser has been dragged into the street.<\/p>\n

For a moment the light falling through<\/p>\n

the station wagon window looks gold.<\/p>\n

A light fit for enshrining the empty city<\/p>\n

or the pallor of plastic saints.<\/p>\n

If this means that I\u2019ve kept speaking<\/p>\n

my same dull desires, that I\u2019ve found myself<\/p>\n

a ghosted suit before the stacking<\/p>\n

of folding chairs on the shine of burnished<\/p>\n

flooring in a darkening gymnasium,<\/p>\n

then you must think of it as a sort of kindness,<\/p>\n

like bearing witness to some final bothering<\/p>\n

of the folds before settling into the strictness of edges.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Requiem for the Florists Association<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I admit a certain foreignness upon<\/p>\n

revisiting my earlier testimony.<\/p>\n

The stately claim of waning hours.<\/p>\n

What can that reflection offer<\/p>\n

us who must weather our days<\/p>\n

as though in their lobbies, in pornographic light.<\/p>\n

I suspect there is always<\/p>\n

a more vulgar way to put it.<\/p>\n

A scrap of air retrieves not<\/p>\n

your early life but the thought<\/p>\n

that it might. C’mere mustard days.<\/p>\n

Washed out in music attendant<\/p>\n

to some parade float.<\/p>\n

Unassuming as ornament goes,<\/p>\n

containing all and none<\/p>\n

in the weak sense of both.<\/p>\n

We are content merely to find ourselves<\/p>\n

within its glassy sweep,<\/p>\n

like the gaze of an old jam jar left<\/p>\n

a long time in an empty field,<\/p>\n

a gift horse toppled<\/p>\n

and let to sea.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Brandon Kreitler’s<\/strong> poems have appeared in\u00a0Conjunctions, Boston Review, Indiana Review, Maggy, Cutbank, DIAGRAM, Sonora Review,\u00a0<\/em>Eoagh,\u00a0Omniverse, Atlas Review,\u00a0<\/em>and others.\u00a0<\/em>A chapbook,\u00a0Dusking,\u00a0<\/em>is out from Argos Books. He’s from Arizona and lives in New York City, where he teaches English at the City University of New York.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Other Side of the Sphinx   Shafts of lamplight measure the city. The waitress approaches like a nurse. It\u2019s been a long dull heat, June without ides, and I think of the prom that must be going on somewhere,   of the bulb faltering in the corner of the lobster tank, and how the failure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-poetry","category-things"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4059\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}