Friday, May 25, 2012

Stephen Caratzas- Three Poems

TUESDAY'S BRIDE

I can see taking Monday off too
to get yourself psyched up
and turn the whole thing into
a long weekend

You owe yourself that much
having bought your own ring
then convinced your mother somehow
this guy was a spectacular catch

After all her years of worry
that you might die uncleansed of sin
or abandoned just as she was
there is now a measure of relief

In the iPhone pictures taken
outside the City Hall chapel
you smile on a Tuesday like it's a Friday
your snared husband is all nerves and sweat

Your mother looks the most frightened
but not by this more by life in general
she is genuinely happy inside
that you are not yet showing

*  *  *

YOU THINK THAT IT IS A SECRET BUT IT NEVER HAS BEEN ONE

The fortune cookie thinks 
you need to be punished
for years of "in bed" codas

If you came to see the sea
well the water's closed today
and tomorrow too possibly

There is an office killer loose
crouched near the fax machine
some people call her boss

I'm a monsieur for hire
I'll give you French attitude
out the ass all day long

How many times have you
wandered beneath the dark
only to emerge into darker?

*  *  *

THEIR WILL HEARD BY THE WORLD

No I was full and nobody 
for all with a sigh
"It will be nice."

They didn't mean anything 
tying up a gay, prancing
ponderous God

seen always trotting along
tired not caring
what happened to me

in this world I feel 
that going through
whatever happens

some in society knew
how I feel with God
contempt

my spirit didn't consider
the matter at all
I feel sure like that

it settled here
a few years ago
and has been its own 

ever since the street 
spread out and mothers 
here go hovering 

to the fourth generation 
lots of young boys scramble 
out of the nests 

go off and decide
to grow up their will
heard by the world

*  *  *

Stephen Caratzas is the author of It Will Be A Train (2004), The Incredulity Tour (2005), and Past Present Suture (Drifting Man Press, 2011). His work has appeared in the tiny, Terra Incognita, Maintenant 6, and numerous online journals. He plays guitar in the band Gert Fröbe and currently resides in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.

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