The Poetry of Janet Buck
Janet Buck's poetry, poetics, and fiction have appeared in CrossConnect, The Melic Review, Kimera, 2River View, Recursive Angel, The Adirondack Review, Steel Point Quarterly, The Rose & Thorn, Ascent, Southern Ocean Review, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, Pedestal Magazine, and a variety other print and internet publications. She is a two-time Pushcart Nominee, a recent recipient of The H.G. Wells Award for Literary Excellence, and one of six winning poets in the Kota Press Anthology Contest. In December 1999, Newton's Baby Press released her first print collection of poetry entitled Calamity's Quilt. Three others have followed in its wake: Reefs We Live, Bookmarks in a Hurricane, and Before the Rose. Janet was one of ten U.S. poets to be featured at the "One Heart, One World" Exhibit at the United Nations Exhibit Hall in New York City in April, 2000. In the year 2001,
Buck's poetry is scheduled to appear in The Montserrat Review, The Amercian Muse, The Carriage House Review, Rockhurst Review, and dozens of journals world-wide.
The Beer Mug With Holes
"There must be a hole
in my glass," you say.
And hand me your mug.
Laughter does its little thing
and our surfaces
seem at peace.
We putt a joke or two
on the lush shaved grass.
Practice pays off
and I smile
my caulking gun grin.
I keep my tears,
their snails and slugs,
their bee remains,
stinging still,
on the bottom rack
of a greasy oven --
in case some renaissance
occurs and you ever grow
hungry to hear them fall.
Disappointment's Dossier
Burns leave scars and mine
are lumps of oatmeal gray.
I wonder if the clothesline
of an uttered prayer
will hang and fluff
wet pages of this dossier,
its muted trust, a doorbell
ringing in my sleep.
I play a memory's instrument
of every evening half-past-five.
The drowning of insipid ghosts,
messages of bliss I missed.
I've climbed a tiny spirit notch;
the ladder wobbles even more
in darkness of this sober light.
I see you in recycling bins,
ancient scraps of bathroom mirrors
bulging in a sliver's pocket
digging into swelling flesh.
There you sit, a weathered cork,
a tarnished dime off bottle caps
from beers you've used for teddy bears
and diaper changes of your grief.
Will there be a renaissance
that comes with wrecks,
a withered liver crying out
for filtering the ill and ail?
Will it take a death, a crunch,
to walk you barefoot in the grass?
Its yellow edges whining
of our dry canteens, hoses kinked
and sputtering with tears of lace.
My axiom is helplessness;
scores are not inside my palms.
For now I kneel, let the ocean go its way,
fill me like a plastic bag.
For now I harp on string-less harps.
Licenses of 90+
Summer's dirt is a dry birthday cake.
With licenses of 90+,
you drag the hose along the curb.
Dressed in aged translucent skin,
wispy as that pastry phyllo wrapped
around those crushed pecans.
Skimpy, checkered boxer shorts,
their billows pregnant with the air,
make you laugh that itchy chortle,
raise the eyebrows rolling by.
I wonder from my filthy car
sitting at a nearby light
(its red just teasing me to run),
if I should quit my 9-5
and help you water daffodils.
Their lanky stalks, a perfect mirror
of your legs, mostly husk,
their yellow trumpets almost straw
minding nature's savagery,
its winding toward oblivion.
From the house, its shingles
thick as fingernails that grow for years
then suddenly return to flesh,
your wife is waving flabby arms,
reminding you to cut the grass.
Its patches brown and weathered now --
puzzle pieces dogs have chewed
on tables of a waiting tomb.
The mower sits, a Pharaoh
full of rust and grit,
a book of action dwelling
on the chapters torn --
what blisses it has bagged and cast
in duty's putrid jewelry box.
"One last piss on pending grave"
is all you cough in firm retort.
Water dribbles from your spout
like sprayed saliva on a word.
The Echo of the End
"These be
Three silent things:
The Falling snow ... the hour
Before the dawn ... the mouth of one
Just dead."
Adelaide Crapsey (1878-1914)
Women chat their mockeries.
Discuss their dull advantages,
applying them like salt on wound.
Whispering gossip as if.
As if it will ply accordions
of wrinkled cheeks, brittle
in their aching scores --
play a song, a better one.
Their ears perking
at the sound of slaughter.
Light as jockeys on a horse,
house keys jingle in a purse.
Out of sugared thunderheads,
comes lightening strike:
"Lucille, you know, is dying.
It's only a matter of time."
They crunch on crumbs
with quiet teeth.
Echoes of the end are near.
Gasps inside this utterance --
short stray threads on blankets
of their bosoms reeling from the facts.
Their passive grief, a bank account.
Silence kicks remaining shins.
Sadness smears their fingerprints.
Too soon a check will bounce and spit
on hands that scribbled signatures.
A grave comes up like indigestion's evidence
spewed across a slippery floor.
Mouths slam shut on scissored hour.
I watch the bruises spread
across their knees, as if they're
blood bags of a prayer.
Pneumonia in their lungs like rain.
Art Villa