ISSUE SIX: December, 2020

TANNED

by ROBERT BEVERIDGE

I felt the stars out like the tips of crested heavens
and saw my body spread out before me like a map of France

Byelorussian dadaist, stare deep
into the portraits of two long-dead men

then we'll climb that cold, wintery mountain
my body gathered up in a thousand folds and crevices
climb that red leathery mountain
with two long-dead portraits

eroded into its folds
I felt those master masons
sun and water

etch my body with those faces
one whose life was over
before it began, but couldn't begin
until his boat washed him overboard

one who had to die before he could begin to write

two Fathers of the Body
spill seed into the fertile Earth-mother
of my flesh
knead seed into this hot skin
mountain, plain, mountain, plain,
knead my body over again
pour out poetry and pain

pay the mason your hard-earned money for his art
and be sure to wear a bandage for the next twenty-four hours

you've paid your homage to dada and dada
now till your fertile earth

ROBERT BEVERIDGE (he/him) makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry in Akron, OH. Recent/upcoming appearances in Red Coyote Review, Deep South Magazine, and Aromatica Poetica, among others.