Poet: J. Bradley, Orlando, FL
Smalldoggies Poetry Feature #21: J. Bradley, Orlando, FL
poems interpreted from Death Cab For Cutie's album Transatlanticism
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The New Year
Around the crooked stick figure self-portrait,
greater-than signs as alligators circle;
they keep me from using “resolution”
in conjunction with “mattress.”
I crumple a red Dixie cup, throw it
in the trash like an impotent firecracker.
Someone unholsters an index finger,
fires at the skeet of conversation.
Tomorrow, I'll let the syringes of corn syrup
and sand reach room temperature. I practiced
cinching my belt around each arm in my teeth,
learning the dead man's curve of veins.
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Title and Registration
I throw health insurance cards, sketches
drawn by other men, deposit slip books,
your mother and stepfather and you
into the stomach of a plastic bag.
I feed the garbage bin amputated scraps
of your cheek and thigh, bits of my right arm
around the waist of the lie you wore that day.
I'll entomb the saw and its copy somewhere,
preserve the teeth of the judge's signature.
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Expo '86
Today, I wear the pelt of the protagonist,
leaning against doors, investigating windows,
recreating pizza parlor tricks.
Tomorrow, you'll wonder why
I don't hit you like a femme fatale
when I find the names you claimed
to abandon.
I wait for your back to arc like a story.
I'll pinpoint the climax, then create
plot holes to fall into and break my legs.
The index finger clicks. I'll draw our outlines
poorly. I'll fight the urge to fit the others.
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J. Bradley is a contributing writer to Specter Magazine and the Interviews Editor of PANK Magazine. His first novella, Bodies Made of Smoke, comes out this fall through HOUSEFIRE Publishing.
When he's not living in Orlando, he lives on iheartfailure.net.