Christopher Hivner- Three Poems

Christopher Hivner writes from a small town in Pennsylvania surrounded by books and the echoes of music. He has recently been published in Anti-Heroin Chic and Syzygy Poetry Journal. A chapbook of poems, “The Silence Brushes My Cheek Like Glass” was published by Scars Publications and another, “Adrift on a Cosmic Sea”, was published by Kind of a Hurricane Press. website: www.chrishivner.com, Facebook: Christopher Hivner - Author, Twitter: @Your_screams


I Wrote This One While Listening to One of my Favorite Songs

It is languid
the song that keeps me in reverie,
speaking a language
I understand too well,
wished I’d never learned.
When the guitar
has its moment in the spotlight
it drives the point home
that I am wallowing
in the cool mud
of the past.
It paces my skin
with succulent frissons
leaving me with the notion
I am still alive.
There is an accordion
in the background
haunting the melody,
pulling me along to the end,
another five minutes spent
thinking of things
I don’t have anymore.



Cassiopeia and a Virginia Slim

The two of us
on the porch
that night,
she’s smoking a cigarette
and freezing.
I’m watching the stars
wishing I could remember
the constellations.
She says something about
not wanting to smoke anymore.
I wanted to put
my arm around her
but we weren’t us now.
She mumbles that
she wants to go shopping
for a new coat,
I want to kiss her
but its too late.
She doesn’t like shopping,
says she never sees anything
she likes.
I shake my head
at the familiar refrain.



That Edge

“I know, I’m going to hell,”
my friend always says
after telling one of his jokes
that make me laugh
and cringe
at the same time.
He gets away
with saying things
I never could.
I wonder sometimes
if I secretly
want to be him,
just for a moment,
to exist inside
that edge,
feel the blade
slice my skin
and draw blood.
Someone pours alcohol
in the wound
to punish me
for my sin,
but I don’t repent.
I laugh harder
than everyone else
feeling my horns
form under the skin.