Poetry by Patrick Meeds
Every time I See a Clock, I Remember
I need to learn some new
swear words. All the ones I know
now sound like someone trying
to slam a door quietly. Like someone
rubbing two tears together trying
to make it rain. I need to get over
this beef I have with gravity.
This obsession I have with the blues.
I know. Let’s go skinny dipping
again this summer. Remember that spot
with the giant boulder sitting just offshore
just begging someone to swim out to it
and sit on it in the sun. Afterward
we can drive around with the windows
down listening to music on the radio.
I’ll pretend I have hands like B.B. King.
Hands that can bend and shake a note
until the sky starts crying. You can pretend
you’re only visible through a powerful telescope
and that your name is Melody.
Origin Story
Mother didn’t want to live
in the house built right below
the high-tension power lines
so there it is. Your excuse
for never becoming a superhero.
Instead, you’ve got varicose veins
and a tattoo you regret. A mortgage
and a ten year old Honda Civic in the garage.
All those years sitting too close to the T.V.
didn’t help. All those years hearing
the marching band practice for the parade
that wasn’t for you didn’t help. But listen!
Is that the death rattle of a sousaphone?
Another member of the brass section
has fainted in the hot sun of band camp.
Don’t break formation is what they said.
Just step over them is what they said.
Here, I’ll take that sheet music.
You won’t need it anymore.
Better to give it to someone who’s got
stamina. Who can put in the hours needed.
That isn’t constantly thinking
about what it feels like to be a bug
clinging to a windshield wiper
at sixty miles an hour. Which is
kind of like a super power, isn’t it?
Patrick Meeds lives in Syracuse, NY and studies writing at the Syracuse YMCA’s Downtown Writer’s Center. He has been previously published in Stone Canoe literary journal, the New Ohio Review, Tupelo Quarterly, the Atticus Review, Whiskey Island, Guernica, The Main Street Rag, and Nine Mile Review among others.
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