JOSEPH KERSCHBAUM
Joseph Kerschbaum is the author of three books of poetry; the most recent being Dead Stars Have No Graves, published by Pathwise Press. He has also released two spoken word albums; the most recent being Our Voices Sound Like Silence (released in November, 2007). Joseph has received grants from the Bloomington Area Arts Council and The Indiana Arts Commission/The National Endowment for the Arts. Joseph is currently on faculty with the John Waldron Arts Center, and he serves as adjunct faculty for Ivy Tech Community College.
Children Lost in Traffic (blood rush hour)
Thousands of chances in a second missed.
Our talking like rush hour, a dance of near misses.
Fenders graze like lips,
a mangled mess with one small mis-
step off the ledge – an accident with no impact.
Delicate as traffic, our tongues swerve and miss.
Turbulence rattling the skull, ears popping like cap guns.
A panicked voice saying, Please take your seat Miss.
The wreckage stretches for miles.
People stranded, everyone missing
their connections, their exits. This conversation
is a million-car-pile-up, planes dropping like missiles.
The world at a standstill as she waits.
Gridlocked clocks stopped, both hands missing.
Joe, your speaking causes accidents.
Your words are missing children who aren’t missed.
The Revolver Under the Table (the fresh red walls)
The cage door clicks as it opens.
She waits for the bird who is not
flying away. Sitting on his swing his wings
are not clipped, just useless. “You’re free,”
she whispers. He stares at her
with eyes as wide as the sky he will not enter.
Neither bird nor girl moves for hours. She relents
first and blows out his bird brains.
Owner’s Manual (there is no north)
She is trying to fix something
that isn’t working, but it isn’t
broken. Her body is a completed puzzle.
It isn’t solved enough, unbroken enough.
She reads the book every night
as if it were a holy text
or a travel guide, preparing
to visit a foreign city
where all of the streets lead
to dead end alleys
or the sea. The book
emphasizes sleep,
charts the lunar cycle, suggests
sex at high tide. Diagrams so detailed
she could take herself apart
and put herself back together
like a coffeemaker or lawn mower.
There are no mysteries in the mechanics,
still, she is lost. The compass
has no needle. Map unfolded,
she is trying to navigate the highways
and back streets of herself.
The Magnificent Destruction (kisses should always be so powerful)
I want her swollen tongue
to fancy dance with mine
and leave me wheezing and feverish.
I want everyone to see
the tainted evidence she plants
at the crime scene. My body
is ready to accept her affection and the infection
that follows. I want to bathe in her illness.
She should wash over me like medication
leaving me with hazy recollections
of her chapped lips, the beautiful intentions they harbored,
and the magnificent destruction they culled. I want her
symptoms to be my symptoms.
I want the phlegm I cough up
to be the same color as hers. I want both
of our immune systems to work overtime
like two automotive factories trying to make quota.
We will hold diseased hands
as we watch the world progress
without us. Neither of us will ever be well again
because we will play tennis with this sickness,
volleying it back and forth on the tips of our tongues
until we can’t remember
who was sick first. Or who was in love in first.
If Thrown, Your Voice May Not Return
(My wooden throat)
Those glass eyes
blank wooden stares
smiling
as if they are waiting
to answer
a question
that hasn’t been asked
laugher carved into their faces
the voiceless mob
sits silent
as a forest
in winter
their lips
motionless
the laugher
lost when the person
who moved the mouth
made the jokes
disappeared
or died or left them
behind to speak
with their own
voice
the dummies
stare at me
I too am
waiting
for someone
to place their hand
next to my heart
inside my mouth
bring me
to life
