{"id":5040,"date":"2014-10-19T02:15:06","date_gmt":"2014-10-19T02:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sporkpress.com\/?p=5040"},"modified":"2014-10-19T02:15:06","modified_gmt":"2014-10-19T02:15:06","slug":"3-poems-jeff-alessandrelli","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/2014\/10\/19\/3-poems-jeff-alessandrelli\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Poems || Jeff Alessandrelli"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI love berries. Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, black berries, anything with an \u2018errie\u2019 in it!\u201d\u2014Jordin Sparks\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thrillberries are poisonous.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Gaudy linguistic<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

allure could tell you that<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

but like the shy, buxom brunette<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

that seems too good to be true<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and then, in the end, is<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

humans often lust and crave<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

after thrill-<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

berries anyway.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This book is not to be doubted <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

reads one of the first sentences in The Koran<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and yet depending on the translator,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

the translation,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

even that beginning is<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

rich with doubt.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Within life\u2019s bearded tidal<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

trust\u2014<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

of language, of lordliness\u2014<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

inevitably rusts,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

clots.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What\u2019s beautiful and true<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

rarely rhymes in time<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

together.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hickory dickory dock.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Loose lips sink<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

long lecherous limber<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ships.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thrill kills<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

kill kill kill.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

August 28th<\/sup> <\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Urban alchemy teaches us<\/p>\n

that, depending on one\u2019s addictions,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

gold reveals itself within many guises,<\/p>\n

nearly all of them makeable, instantly ready for purchase.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That there are more African-American males in jail today<\/p>\n

than there were slaves in the antebellum American South,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

that over 66% of them are incarcerated for the selling of narcotics,<\/p>\n

teaches us that midnight in a perfect world<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

is going to bed late and sleeping poorly,<\/p>\n

waking up still tired.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For months on end it\u2019s been evening<\/p>\n

all day long;<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

an entire lifetime spent<\/p>\n

learning how to be yourself<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and perpetually failing<\/p>\n

in ways not even your own.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nightmares are imaginary but often<\/p>\n

steeped in what was once real.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Gold\u2019s gaudy, garish, especially<\/p>\n

in the summer,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

portentous weight of the heat\u2019s dripping<\/p>\n

licking sun.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The hard bright mist of hip-hop sprays<\/p>\n

out a million passenger side windows this evening.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On tiptoe, in packs, each car slowly sidles by.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Poem against Adulthood\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Raping a slave is easy,<\/p>\n

too easy. My job<\/p>\n

sucks; yours is worse.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m unemployed<\/p>\n

in the same manner as<\/p>\n

the sun at night:<\/p>\n

grand, idealized notions of what<\/p>\n

might have been<\/p>\n

if not for such sudden darkness.<\/p>\n

I miss recess,<\/p>\n

the golden miles between ignorance and regret,<\/p>\n

between cargo shorts and collared shirts,<\/p>\n

getting up at 6 because you want to<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

vs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

getting up at 6 because\u2014something.<\/p>\n

Age\u2019s error is identifiable<\/p>\n

not by number<\/p>\n

but by sound, sight:<\/p>\n

wrangled cracking of an oak<\/p>\n

tree\u2019s branches, perpetual,<\/p>\n

close, distant,<\/p>\n

the moon visibly alive<\/p>\n

only at the very beginning<\/p>\n

and end of our lives.<\/p>\n

Dirt, dirt;<\/p>\n

dying, I assume, hurts.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll never know.<\/p>\n

Food stamp kid<\/p>\n

in a food stamp land,<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a bicycle accident waiting to happen.<\/p>\n

Forever young,<\/p>\n

may you stay<\/p>\n

forever\u2014<\/p>\n

it\u2019s the sick jokes that stick.<\/p>\n

Leaves lisping<\/p>\n

in the summer breeze,<\/p>\n

the world\u2019s beauty is unjust.<\/p>\n

Grow up.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jeff Alessandrelli<\/strong> is the author of the recently published full-length collection THIS LAST TIME WILL BE THE FIRST<\/a><\/i>. Other work has appeared in\u00a0Denver Quarterly, DIAGRAM, Gulf Coast<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0Boston Review<\/i>, among others. The name of Jeff’s dog is Beckett Long Snout<\/a>. The name of Jeff’s chapbook press is Dikembe Press<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI love berries. Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, black berries, anything with an \u2018errie\u2019 in it!\u201d\u2014Jordin Sparks\u00a0\u00a0   Thrillberries are poisonous.   Gaudy linguistic   allure could tell you that   but like the shy, buxom brunette   that seems too good to be true   and then, in the end, is   humans often lust and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-things"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5040","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=5040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5040\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}