COBALT

ISSUE 20: POETRY

Issue 20: Poetry

Rebecca Pyle

B.C.A. Belcastro

Nikki Ikani

Scott Ferry

Heather Wood

Charles Kell

Victor Koran

Jenelle Clausen

The Salt KingThe Salt QueenThe Salt Child

Capture

The Hephaistion

Duke Kahanamoku watches himself surf in a dark room

Modern Love, Entertaining

James Schuyler’s Pill BottleLost Wren

Lock

We Named the Hamster AnheuserThe Board Goes to the Zoo

Walking in on a Man Who Has JustTied His Dance Shoes

COBALT

Issue 20: Poetry

Alec Hershman

Lowell Jaeger

Carl Boon

Matthew Banash

Robert Carney

Brett Cortelletti

A Glass of Tea

Slapping the Octopi

Pittsburgh Poem

Surfeit

For Your Essay, Describe NatureWhat Grade Would You Give the Night?

Ars Poetica with Egg

COBALT

Rebecca Pyle

I told him I would make a sculpture, a salt king.

Tell me what your salt king looks like.

My salt king looks like squaresGuarded, always guarded, bySalt, the Great and Lonely Salt KingAt the Great Salt Lake.

There’s almost-Salt Queen—beside him and she prefers Also—as much salt, dullness, flatness—as possible. All around Her—Dead silver sea-chain. Of waves. No flowers.

They have tuned each other out as if Amelia and Noonan, radios run on expiredCrystals, flattened by the sunTo a hum.

Before them, salt sea.Salt sea now square as it is round.

The Salt King

*“The Salt King” originally appeared in Taj Mahal Review in India in 2018.

That spiraling jetty all roundness, all promise!Leading you to—roundness! As if to dark sweet Center of Some cinnamon bun, celestial! And a drowning?

Water rippling after you fall in—sweetheart—Never forming A square. It’s circle And circle And circle—

But Salt King knows his salt grief Always has secret hard center, square:Square to stay calm, to be not enterable:World Trade towers, burial of squares:Failing math grades, squares:People choosing pink instead of red each time are—squares.Avoidance of everything triumphant, thinks Salt King, Must be square.Please, square, thinks the King, to avoid disappointments.

Music—all roundness, like the Spiral Jetty.At the shore of the Great Salt Lake. Everything else, thinks king, square upon square, doomed crystals Old failed radios, resolute square crystals, as salt is even In saltwater. Consider our boxiness, our enclosures Chemistry proves it square: squares.

Our salt, our continually (as the king knows)—stackable Grief.

My Salt King looks like—squares.

Rebecca Pyle

The Salt Queen speaks for herself.

My rectangular skirt dark and flat as chalkboards. I drew on my flat chalkboard skirt—the life I could Have had: The Man and Woman Ballroom Dancing French People Dining Beneath Chandeliers. Irish All Top-Deck Titanic, Dancing. And Dancing. Oh, How I Could Have Danced—As Salt Queen.

So fluid, so fluid, I thought, tracing and trancing the Dancing ballroom couple.The Salt King and I! Me! And I! The King and I!We could have been!

But for the tall gates! I thought as I traced—these designs. The tall gates! The tall gates their dark fretwork iron Each holding, each side, one old-young woman—My sisters. My sour attendants. One to each side. Each in their gate, made of iron, double venoms Facing each other each side of the Gate, guarding. Letting all go through—but me. Cuckoo Clock Double DemonsSwiss prisons: they wore me to waterTo flat cement. The Salt King and I? I and the Salt

The Salt Queen

King?We’re still now.We’re pillars of salt.

Once Salt Prince asked me if he could look at what I Was writing. On a piece of—paper. May I see, he said.

Oh, I said. My voice did not know how to sound. Yes.

My heart was green, was blue, was wig-zag like mountains!He read. While I studied his hair! The shine of all oceans!Sunset and sunrise kissing each other, peaceful made one, His forehead a star shining in it—all his brow bright glory-star.During his minute of reading—I could sense he wanted to speak— This poem is all dashes! During his minute almost speakingI rose and fell Beneath all the world’s waves, Waited.

But. The jealous ones—at gate. Iron and stationary envy. That sad letter—S for salt? Curve of inverse loss: toggle lockAt the gate that could not be—undone. One sister at the topOne sister at the bottom. Two sisters. At sides. Endless Sisters and poisons—of salt.

Yes, I was frightened by my heart. It beat so red. Apparent to

ThemSurely—it showed throughMy clothes so milky, my skin so milky and translucent then, as Bleached salt—That red heart beating brilliant loud as a bloody bird Wanting both to fly from themBe trapped by him.

I, Salt Queen, wear never-crown now.Crown of the sisters’ triumphant, heavy, successful guarding. Copper clunky teakettle that never boiled and made tea. Their jealousy made solar evaporationOf my self. My older heart hard-whitened now, crunch-dry, salt.So. Tell me—why cannot I untip their prize, my crown, from my Head? It’s rust-mocking as the crown for Jesus. Always at tip, as vinegarBottle was, someone aboutTo pour that cup of vinegarFor him. For me. For both of us.To mine add salt: And the view of this Great Salt Lake.Undrinkable.

I’ll stand so still as long as we last, our radios never In tune, nor tuneable:

Sand and salt and cement forever, a nation of—still.

Dream of compliance she could have had:Salt ionic charged chargelessness, swimming like Salmon upriver, kings, roe, caviar, salmon—

Time holds her salt-preserved. Time, yo: she still sing songs in her chains. Like Dylan Thomas’s sea: she, salt-sea,Dying; she sings, sings in her chains—Almost like the sea.

Rebecca Pyle

He wanted to dissolve in her, I suppose, wanted to become inHer formations crystalline cascading building again: creating Me who never was, only tunneling cascade dishwasher-rout Ocean joy, Begun with Single dry Crystal in the sun.Salt Child.

Many-crystal Salt-Prince I never came to be. Guarding those gates, her sisters: like jealous ovaries—Exit of possible pearly eggs. Jealousy, Iron And Rust, ever-poised sisters. Devoted: gave up their Lives to ruin hers.

I’m bright.Single salt crystal, I have travelled: I’m been with beautiful boys Ever-far north: watched their building by mittened hands Walls of snowforts much bigger than they Needed to be—in Alaska.

The Salt Child

How busy they were! Building forts for a dayFor forever. For the temporary pleasure—of watchful clouds?To remember, in old age, they once were dreaming young princes?Kings?

I’m simple crystal. I Salt Crystal Want to follow all menTo AlaskaWant to breathe the salt breath of dogsWant to glide again on snow crunch that carries Aurora Borealis Of colors. I want to sleep in snow forts, want to travel on boots, but I go—wherever water wind wet boots take me.

I Salt radiant and white as snow IntendTo marry sand. I’ve seen you SandIn hourglasses.

I like being more radiant than you Sand—Sand, I’m the one caught and bought—and sold. You’re in bed forever, sand:They let you toss and listen. They all want me sand till we’re dissolved, dissolution, gone.I’m pawn shop, I’m precious enormous piles and saleablepillarsRed Sea and Great Salt Lake brine shrimp, markable chargeable Lots: I’m something in bibles: I’m salt.

Your despair so dependable, Sand.So soothed, so soothing. All of you flowing—like endless scarf. I? I’m overstated promise of profit, and prophets, and seers.

Our planets are managing What they have leftover of you and me,Sand. We last longer than snow. What is left after Our conversions—to glass, to gravies, Awful saltwater taffy, cement grit-sand reductions, Right-hands-held-upReligions, people throwing salt over shoulders—for luck! Let meFall on you, Sand. We’re all three of us—snow, sand, salt—Particulate fate. How we Fall—important, and unimportant, messes.

Let’s toast to Hourglasses, Sand in hourglasses! Salt in Hourglasses!Glass is your mother, SandGlass is my saltdream of—safety, purity.

I love safety

And in hourglasses we might both, Sand, live almost forever,Protected side by side we could be, in hourglasses, in glass, Seeing each other. Truly tipsy In hourglasses—beside each other, King and Queen, me Eyeing you the way the ones who could have been my mother

And father, queen and king, eye each other across the Undrinkable Salt Lake.

Pure is not how you Begin. It is what you Become. FormedThrough pressure. Through suffering---snow, salt, glass. Sand! I am Salt Child. I am dreaming of glass.

Those Alaskan boys’ forts? I know what they were. They held boys with voices. Boys with voices.Boys in Alaska—dazzle-dreaming of love.Building the fort—to keep her Safe, safe, below or aboveThe sacred doorwayThe lintelSafe. In.

B.C.A. Belcastro

Begun in confusion, and later staying on as habit, I tapped morse codeon every table, wall,

and window, though I mangled the dashes and mostcharacters I forgot, the code spread.To what distance unknown,

and never an answer, no spectral summons from beyond.For a long time, I received no mail.I thought of angels and lightning

and a girl I had once passed off as kind, in love, and that none of these had ever returned to me. I mourned,

rapped missives and memos—unintelligible—to friends.Unknown to me the errors of encryption,they might answer if they could,

but finally, today, I hear a murmur of response:three taps, slow and tired.Dot dot dot.

Capture

Nikki Ikani

The Hephaistion (Chimaera, called Yanar by the Turks) is a walk of an hour and a half to the NW some 250 m above sea level, and is approached by an ancient paved way. The fire is quite small, burning in a hole in the ground, and is unspectacular by day. Of the sanctuary of Hephaistos nothing remains but a few inscriptions, none relating to the fire or sanctuary; there are also some shapeless fragments of ma-sonry from ruined buildings of the late Middle Ages.

F. Beaufort, Karamania (1811)

The Hephaistion

Ivan remember when we walked up Mount Chimaera at midnightto see small blue fires burnatop the temple of Hēphaistos blacksmith of the godsweakly among the blessedthrown off the Olympos by his motherto be raised by a nymph?

Because I triedbut all I can remember is howstanding next to the eternal firesatop a temple of a godwe found sweat could come out of the skin on our forearmsgushing

Scott Ferry

The film makes the sea look like pua’a fatas the wind makes the bones roll in. There I am on my olo, Kiamana Hila behind me. In gray the mountain

stands upside down like a cloud crouching, not green,not sky-vein blue. And my brother’s skin flickers on the movie dark ash, not iliahi, not bright sandalwood copper.

We swim between words, swallowing and building,and they decide to have me race in Waikikifor time. I swim and they tell me our clocks must be

alarm clocks, unqualified to measure times faster than Americans. I have since proven them false, more films show this. In the clicking pictures we look like Mickey Mouse

swimmers, the gold no different than bronze on sepianewspapers. California, always windy, and the hills onlyflowering after paltry rain, then brittle again.

Some men steer their boat into Newport Harborthe other day during a chubasco, waves spinning it over three times, and the boat belches out men

Duke Kahanamoku Watches Himself Surf in a Dark Room

into the May sea, twenty foot cliffs of foam crush them.We find our boards and pull them through spasms of breath and paddle and spit

to safety, then back out for more. We got 12. But 17 are still under, where gray meets grayand the film cuts off and flips in circles.

They ask me to face the camera.I look through the flash.

Heather Wood

Dude, fill the salt cellars,help me out here,I’m drowning in mise en place, wee-wee pads, and low heat cycles.Find the espresso cupsfrom Aunt Freedom Frooti Larkynand be sure the filigree shines,for God’s sake—they visit only once a year.You know she’s bringing her whisky— yeah, another Wheaten-Husky mixwho’s grain-free, ironically.Do we have enough mock duck?Kombucha? Pellegrino?I’d spiralize the Cousa squashbut it troubles Uncle Bert’s SIBO.No, dude, don’t ask,just put extra rolls in viewand let’s keep a candle burning.Whoa, mind the Roomba!Alexa! Where does the time go?!Oh, would you look at that…now I need a new manicure.

Modern Love, Entertaining

Charles Kell

is halfempty, nothalf full.A loud windwhistlesthrough the liveoaks. Snowknits the lawn in smallcrescentsthat from a distance look like little teeth.One windowis halfopen. The restare sealedtight with tinysilver nails.

James Schuyler’s Pill Bottle

Charles Kell

in a low winter field.Massed winds from the northblow sharp frost over stillwings.Shudder from the silence inside.Know that nothing on its ownis ever truly unsure of its way.Like the animal you watchfrom your frozen window and sayit must be cold, frightened.Yet its black-glass eyes fixon the wind, behind your lockeddoor you imagine a song. Look,it’s gone.

Lost Wren

Charles Kell

Four white mothsstick to the candle’s dripping wax.I have covered the mapwith stale bread crumbs.

I have poured the last dropsof wine into my cup.& you stare as though a howlingdog has woken you from deep sleep.

The edges of your cheekraw from a dull razor.The bent keys pried fromyour cracked fingers in a heap

on the floor. & the windfrom the cold mountain shakesthis tiny hut. & the cagewhere the prisoner is kept, rattles.

Lock

Victor Koran

Our father had a funeralfor a hamster.He plucked the body from pineand cedarand wrapped him in linenwith aloe.

Our father gathered us inthe yard, ordered us to hold hands.We linked as our father lowered the hamsterinto the ground and covered the tomb with stone.

Our father ate a cracker,poured out the blood.He prayed for his sinswith a cigarette and tooka step around the hamsterfor each apostle.

We Named the Hamster Anheuser

In his divinity our father wept for him.In his humanity he raised him from the dead.

Victor Koran

They arrived in cars we’d only read about,fantasized about, in magazines. They knockedtheir tiny fists on the glass to make us move,watched us, first, from the offices. Slowly,they entered the exhibit. Guided by the manager,they walked between two yellow lines,safely watched us in our natural habitat. “Herewe have the strip-cutting exhibit.” I went aboutmy work. “Victor, heel!” I heeled. The managercrossed the lines. “As you can see,here we have an impressive specimen.” He forcedhis fingers under my lips and exposed my canines,my gums. “Beautiful teeth and bite.” I smiled.I would get points for attitude. He extended my armsand spread my legs. “No deformities, long limbsfor picking up material. Perfect for his task.”He walked behind me, checked the musclesin my back, then reached between my legs,felt my testicles. “Yes, a perfect strip-cutter.”He slapped me on the ass and forceda doughnut in my mouth. “And he evenhas some college education!” The Boardclapped like golfers and sauntered off.

The Board Goes to the Zoo

Jenelle Clausen

I know you smooth that cobalt suede with your palmsso the nap lies in one direction: heel, sides, tongue, toe —your hands slip over the end and catch on the raw leatheredge of your chestnut sole, a smooth sole for caressingthe dance floor, but with enough grip to change directionin an instant, keep me on my toes. You tug your narrowchestnut laces once more, ensuring tight, even bows.

At evening’s end, you sit and grasp opposite agletsbetween thumbs and index fingers and pull outward,a conductor closing a symphony’s final note. You tiethe empty shoes and slide them into your backpack,heels first. I would let you love me that way.

Walking in on a Man Who Has Just Tied His Dance Shoes

Alec Hershman

That so many things amber, left alone.That heat in the hands is a notion

winter offers and with a lemonthe light is less but savored,

the cooling largely unattended:breakroom furniture,

office fichus, coffeepot.The doors on both sides down the hall

are cracked, and spilled from eachare soft gray piles of sugar.

A Glass of Tea

Lowell Jaeger

One Aegean morningI rise early to explore the streetsin grey light as windows blink open,as shopkeepers yawn,greet one another,look up and guess the sky’s intention.

As fishermen reel nets and stow traps.As the night crew chugs into port,home from the white-capped horizon,the night’s catch unloaded on the docks,restaurateurs appraising iced crates of sardines.

The waiter serves me black coffee,crusty bread and jam. I’m writing postcards.Along the shoreline below,one shirtless old man shoulders a burlap sacktoward a particular table-topped boulderwhere he spills his labor’s net worth

— three octopi —lifting each in turn over his head

and slapping them like laundered shirtsthwack thwacksmacking the lifeless fleshagainst the stone.

Slapping the Octopi

This is done, the waiter explains, to tenderize the tentaclesbefore dicing and boiling slicesin minced garlic and oil.

Now the sun casts its first rayson an old woman who kneelsto scrub the cobbles.Now the bells call . . .and worshippers, arm-in-arm,file past toward early mass.

I work at my postcards furiously,like I’m slapping them against the rocks.

Carl Boon

For Işıl

The fourth river mud & itwill never be a river & you will dieof boredom & too much sky. Too manymothers pushing children they are pointing asking whythe sadflesh posture of their fathers fell the barricaded coalfleshtheir own & now goldblack renaissance.I hate it as I hate most poetry a city you are right must be dangerous & dirty & fraughtwith anxious children no road home.& by the way your hands are beautiful Iron City handsholding against the dark just one more night one more riverto cross & I am always unhappy.What they call Fifth Street wasa tombstone whores gliding collidingreckoning the Express to Clevelandwould only take a day & you must believe me when I say the scorn of coal my ancestors drowning in it

Pittsburgh Poem

Old Mister Bordac never had a chancehe sent dollar bills that got lostin Scranton & drank cheap wine& was murdered. This is America& this is why Pittsburgh is & isn’t.

Matthew Banash

Mary Theresa cuts hair threeOr four days a week. Has sevenGrandbabies, five friends and a sixInch scar down her chest. Once, on theWay to Orlando, she stopped inA megachurch and witnessed oneHundred and twenty-eight people getBaptized in a horse trough. And lastWeek, while sitting in her kitchen,Where mostly all good things happen,And looking out in the driveway,She saw a crow’s shadow for theFirst time in all her life, neverRealizing crows had shadows.Each day, she said, is a blessing.

Surfeit

Robert Carney

The screen door batters in its frame.This is no June storm,

it’s morethan a little wind,

so stand with your back againstwhatever swear words you can.

Let them bloom.Plant a garden.

If you had mangoes, they’d beflinging, nothing left:

wind-pilfered, enginedunder.

You can lovetalk forever about nature.It’ll still kick your ass.

For Your Essay, Describe Nature

Robert Carney

The stars are dialed in,it’s not noisy,

it smells full of life, late dinnersjust over.

And a house set down in the middlewith a garden out back.

Someone calls to someone,and the wind, that magic carpet, floats

her voice until it’s everywhere,and no dogs; forget dogs;

their barking seems packed offto a museum

where people skip the headsetssince no one wants to hear.

I’d say it’s a big Amen.I’d love to trade places with an owl.

What Grade Would You Give the Night?

Brett Cortelletti

Stand in a cold rain long enough tocontract a fever of 102°, then placethe egg in your mouth and leave it there.Once the fever subsides, sanitize theegg with a swig of tequila. Removethe egg from your mouth and reachfor something precious, somethingleft behind by your grandmother,and submerge it in a fire -started witha broken promise written on yellowedpaper- until it glows red and plungethe object through the eggshell andlet it cook the egg from the insideout. The egg is done when the yolkis solid and any uncooked egg whitehas leaked through the cracks. Eatit alone in a room without windowswith the lights turned off and repeatto yourself that innovation is worththe pains of creation.

Ars Poetica with Egg