Three Poems
Gravity
When we learned
about the earth in orbit
and began to feel ourselves
standing sideways, our
burdens became lighter.
Then some prankster god
decided to turn the whole
goddamn thing upside
down so that we were
right side up. The sun rose
and set and the moon
followed suit and time went
on and we grew old and
counted our scars while the
weight of ourselves on this world
became too much to bear.
Then we noticed our sagging
breasts, our flaccid pensées…
The Diver
He is Michelangelo’s David in a Speedo
poised on his toes, back to the pool,
arms outstretched like Jesus at the end of a springboard
that quivers and bounces him into the air.
He folds his body like a fetus and spins in a tight somersault
three times then straightens, reaching toward the water,
arching back so as to enter without a splash, the blue
translucent surface erasing everything
that came before.
Aproprospoem
The urge
to create is a
nervous tick, the
more I try to control it
the more
pronounced
it becomes.
Yet I seem to be the only one bothered by it. And it occurs to me: the ladies are not impressed by my oversized Baudelaire, and my Mallarmé is growing weaker by the day. I don’t even want to talk about my Balzac.
Writing poems isn’t noble or relevant any more than ships inside bottles or granny’s crochet. And as I treat my subject with scorn a breeze blows through the open window and I hear the creak of my neighbor’s door as she leaves to run to the store.
Two birds scratch and claw under the gutter. My ability to think has spread thin. I’d rather be with my neighbor in the checkout lane holding a twelve-pack and looking at the tabloids debating if the world really will end this time, and if Nostradamus could be right, and if that really is Christ’s face in the flames over Baghdad. Her daughter and her daughter’s friend are on the porch giggling over something in a glossy magazine.
I can almost smell
the ads of perfume
in that magazine.
I want to know what
they are laughing about.
Les parfumes, les couleurs et
les sons se répondent and the
goddamn birds
are still scratching and
clawing under the gutter.
Norman “Buzz” Minnick is a poet and playwright. His second full-length collection, Folly, is published by Wind Publications. He is the author of To Taste the Water: Poems (Mid-List Press, 2007) and several chapbook collections including Two for the Cold, a collaborative work with Lawrence Atwood, (Broadside Books, 2000) and The Overreacher (Broadside Books, 1998). He is the editor of Between Water and Song: New Poets for the Twenty-First Century (White Pine Press, 2010). He has not yet written a play. Minnick is not Poet-in-Residence at a university and he has not been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. In fact, he has won no major awards. For news and updates, visit www.buzzminnick.com