I entered your bedroom that Sunday morning
when no one was looking, saw my mother
in the middle of the floor with you on her,
winking at me from behind. Went blind,
became a column of air. Sang snippets
of vomit-confusion within our assumed
sweetness. Remembered then forgot
my name during the sin-fired breakfast
below. I would have danced for you,
you magnificent creatures, but my feet
became stone in that claw-breast moment.
Scared but not for one moment afraid,
I took the vision straight on, clung
to my toys, silence and paraphernalia.
Played with lead soldiers, rabbits, dogs,
robots, cartoons, books and whatever
available animals existed or, not yet
conceived (the fox carcass in the woods
now excited me), conceived my own—
slept with snakes slipping from throat to
belly to mind’s laryngized voice: realized
the sky rapes clouds in open misery birds
rape air in open misery trees rape earth
in open misery rats rape corn in open misery—
none dancing, all screeching, as half-a-mule
down the road ants gang-rape the weakest
giant they can find under leaves for their
childrens’ childrens’ childrens’ sake.

Selected byRaymond Huffman
Image credit:AJ Wallace
Matt Dennison

After a rather extended and varied second childhood in New Orleans

(street musician, psych-tech, riverboat something-or-other, door-to-door

poetry peddler, etc.), Matt Dennison finished his undergraduate degree at

Mississippi State University where he won the National Sigma Tau Delta

essay competition (judged by X.J. Kennedy). He is the author of Kind Surgery

from Urtica Press (Fr.) and  Waiting for Better from Main Street Rag Press.

His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Verse Daily, Rattle, Bayou Magazine,

Redivider, The National Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, Modern Haiku, Tulane

Review, The Inflectionist Review, DIAGRAM, Hiram Poetry Review, Slipstream,

The Midwest Quarterly, Spoon River Poetry Review and Cider Press Review,

among others. His fiction has appeared in ShortStory Substack, THEMA, GUD,

The Blue Crow (Aus), Prole (UK), The Wondrous Real and Story Unlikely.

He has also made poetry videos with Michael Dickes, Marc Neys,

Jutta Pryor & Marie Craven.

 

Kind Surgery (Urtica Press)

 https://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/waiting-for-better-matt-dennison/

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008709036240