The Rat's Nest
крысиная нора
поэзия

poetry by Mickey Cesar (Мики Сизар)                     e-mail: mickeycesar@gmail.com


[updated Monday, December 19th, 2011]

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INTRODUCTORY NOTE FOR MONDAY, DECEMBER 19TH, 2011

After a tumultuous autumn, I have settled into an apartment in Kyiv.

The days are short, eight hours of grey skies then night.

I miss my language.

Anyway, a few new unedited poems, with the usual caveat:
find enclosed some gems, some trash.

enjoy or don't.

to bursting with language


She slices onions in a small kitchen,
dreams of ink.  The knife feels dull in her hand.
Snapping flesh, flaking off the skin.

When she has diced the exact measure of the day
she turns to other things.  Gas jets
and tubes, steam, electricity.  In the city

there is coffee – and as the first flames lick
the rim of her shallow pan, she sets aside
a cigarette and match
for the man who never comes.






new promises


Here then, friend, here is my throat.

We have come to a bloodthirsty conclusion
to a vicious century.  We have
exported hunger, and in cold rooms
await our undoing.  Another pint might
still all memory of evil, so
pour another.

A slick mist covers the paving stones
from the University to the grocery down the street.
We weave between dingy façade and oncoming traffic.
We do all these things; the police
are sure to notice.  Your papers
grow old.  Like the plague-stricken
birds which rain down in the alleys, we each
have inglorious ends waiting.  I fear it;
we feel it in our bones.  Take from me
this flesh, my friend: God has
disappointed me.  May you
find better use
for this blood,
weak
and thin.






sanctuaries


Let us retire to underground caverns.
The soil is torn in your home – the young
trees ripped by the roots.  There is
room beneath the streets, cold caskets
of our ancestor’s apocalyptic dreams.

The open sky once rained blessings,
mists and dews.  It shuddered somehow; was it
our loss of faith, our poor offerings?

We held two coins, and kept one:
it was not enough.  We have paid for oxygen,
demanded too much, and now the sun
flickers.  We have ash on our hands.
This winter gets smaller by the minute.

We together can descend stairs,
but will ache
by separate fires.

dark spots


There is sorrow enough in crumbled mortar
and broken bricks.  Near midnight, we descend
stairs, our ankles twisting
more and more
on our heels.

I want to watch you
charming a Вiле and vodka, talking
soft and uncertain blue spots –
Bruises, I correct, suddenly convinced
I have fractured your belief in me.

You can bring me a map of the city;
we each can smoke cigarettes in silence.
The noise and madness
are enough for all of us.




zero times faith


Natasha, it was a hospital, that grey stone
jet-black windowed  on Saksaganokogo.
We should have stopped, loitered at least,
the walls and paving stones stealing
our last warmth that the freezing mist
did not catch.

The free-fall is going well so far.
When I arrive
when the earth comes up to meet me
I will write
and tell you it was a river you looked to
and I will apologize zero times
for stealing the food from your mouth.
Even in the train station
we move from room to room
while dreaming
far cities.  Each seems
to have walls which crumble, broken
stairs and impossible doors
I cannot solve. 

In seven days, we must again
speak of taxis and trains
exchange rates, the shortened days
of Moscow December.
Have faith.

“Human time does not turn in a circle; it runs ahead in a straight line. That is why man cannot be happy: happiness is the longing for repetition.”
~ from The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

conversation number one


“Is it we are wedded to Armageddon, Mister Black?”
Mr. Black: it is we; indeed, us each.
“Is it you who will pull the trigger, sir?”
Mr. Black: no, but I alone will break
the black cat’s bones.”






text message to hennessy


excellent.  I have
tales to tell.  You are one
of maybe three who can hear them.
The rest of the world
is deaf with unhappiness, my brother,
stone deaf.






summaries of hell


Roiling change from hand to hand
as if the sound of it, the juggling flow
might, if balanced,
become a river.
                              It may be time
to collect all your shoes
and settle on one pair.  The raven
can tell the future, unaware as its
dark eyes are deep
what you need.  Lay pennies
on your eyelids, read
the rot which comes from your guts.

coda


From your lips fall flowers you have tasted
bitterly.  We were best when
our breath was unmixed.  You would leave,
go back to the man who cooked casseroles
and raven soup.  I never asked
what dance the two of you might
nightly execute.  You two:
and me consumed
with guilt and garlic.  There are no roses
scattered about
my sanctuary, just whispers
and strands of hair.





crosshaired


Shadows of barbed wire
cut the frozen grass by your hand.
It is with some trembling that you take the blade
and scrape the mist from your forearms.
In the dying light, guard towers creak
under their own weight and age.  As the cold
settles in beneath your collar, cuts through
your poor coat, you recall seasons passed
huddled in trenches, ever wary of your silhouette,
raw target, autumns too numerous to distill
into a singular bitterness, and as the fence
twists by sunset, you are left considering
beauty beyond the wire, or if
the poison you’ve slowly sipped
might be comfort unto death.

“The pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future. In truth, all sensation is already memory.” ~ Franz Kafka

seven things I want to learn before I die, or, histories of the Great Loneliness


The memories of insects, if they land
on rotten fruit, my skin, and think
this again.  Second, how the jaw feels
going head-first through a windshield.
I knew that once, but have since forgot.
I’d say, third, the solution
to her skin, but that might really
be first.  Or second.  Or maybe just a
freckle-by-freckle guidebook, but that’s not so much
thought but object: it does not count.
Third, the physics of happiness.  Is it
something, or just a negation of
drowning in dry air?  Four,
the difference between free and blank verse.  How to breathe
without feeling guilty.  Five.  Six, to find out
finally, why it matters.  What the it
is.  Seven,
the taste of her skin.






recursion & theology


Still.  The moment of September coastlines
slopes into the darker hours of
temperate zones.  Prayers hover over
the rocks and sand, then curl into
the ocean
with an astonished gasp, fold in
among the sticks and shells,
drown without protest.
We each spend lifetimes alone with our utterances,
alternating between sad and plaintive
ever convinced
we were loved once.





catacombs


Wine, candlelight.
Muted imprecations shift back from stained glass
neon hums.  The procession, light-clad
bodies twists past the fountain. This
is my body.  This
is my blood.  We hover
over ashtrays and fragments
of gospel.
Your words are blue shocks, familiar.
You call.
I respond.  Your words:
the evening’s electricity ripples through our bodies
shudders our jawlines, our tongues
pierced and wanting.  From
incense, sweat, and blood we fashion
reliquaries.

“Like all pure creatures, cats are practical.” ~ William S. Burroughs

IF I WERE ON FIRE
75 poems, with photography by Allison Richardson
was released by Spartan Press on May 12th, 2011
and is available at
Prospero's Books 1800 West 39th, Kansas City, MO
Raven Bookstore 6 East 7th Street, Lawrence, KS
and of course, Amazon if you're not lucky enough to be close to Prospero's or the Raven.
[SAMPLES FROM IIWOF]






VANISHING POINT
54 poems, with artwork by Alexis Cullerton available at:
Prospero's Books 1800 West 39th, Kansas City, MO
Raven Bookstore 6 East 7th Street, Lawrence, KS
KU Bookstore 1301 Jayhawk Boulevard, Lawrence, KS
and, of course, through Amazon.com

PISS OFF NO PROPHETS: EXCERPT FROM II KINGS 2:23-25
23 And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. 24 And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them. 25 And he went from thence to Mount Carmel, and from thence he returned to Samaria.

OTHERS LOST:
Poetry of Matt Porubsky, author of Voyeur Poems and Fire Mobile (The Pregnancy Sonnets)
Laura Kitzmiller reading at Prospero's
Hep Cat and Fab Art-boy Andrew Jilka.
Jason Ryberg, author of Devils, Dice & Car Parts, Blunt Trama and other goodness.
Bronze Conduits poetry by Julianne Buchsbaum, author of Slowly, Slowly, Horses and A Little Night Comes
Mitzvah poems and random niftiness from Robert J. Baumann
My Favorite Barista Michaela on Lawrence.com and blogspot

OTHER MICKEY SCHTUFF:
me on Facebook
feature in Present Magazine July 2007
interview with four other soldier/poets from WarNewsRadio May 2007
interview with Bill Radke of Minnesota Public Radio Weekend America June 2007
write-up on the book release from the Lawrence Journal-World January 2005
interview with Laura Spencer of KCUR-FM Kansas City January 2005

OLD AUDIO POEMS:
spearmint tea, tracks, and trestles
aurora borealis
living rain
the psalms of wasps

VIDEOS:
Jazzhaus feature, March 2011
Jazzhaus February 2011
Prospero's Poetry Filibuster (setting a world's record for longest poetry reading!) June 2010
“the afterlife” at Prospero's May 2010
lindsey & the f-bomb at the Writer's Place, March 2008
natalie 3:28 Kansas City Lit Fest, June 2008

and just for fun, I'm the “star,” but have no lines: how is this possible? The Priest in the Porn Shop.

PAINTINGS:

              

OTHER FAVES:
Prospero's Books used books, local poetry & events, and UnHoly Day Press
Flutter Poetry Journal
Glenda Rolle artwork
Rough Traces by Jason Wesco (review)
The artwork of C. Elisabeth Bear
Church of the Subgenius
and, of course, the amazing and talented Josie Wrath

The amazing Alexander Nevsky
(April 15th, 1999 – September 4th, 2009)

“The incorrigible sorrow of all prisoners and exiles... is to live in company with a memory that serves no purpose.”
~ Albert Camus

increscunt animi, virescit volnere virtus