Monster
for Melissa

I write on a rap sheet.
I wind up, given up for dead,
a helot.
In these few words I’m making
some kind of plea.
Bargaining for you affection,
or if not that,
then a pulled punch, a drunk
ex-lover’s insinuation.
I wait by the mailbox.
Again, you don’t respond, the
silence surrounds
me like a blister.
I loved you. But, it was long ago.
I’m different now.
I’m loveless
and horrid.

Endstorm

The rain came.
At first.
When darkness
quivered
about us
we understood
a little better.
Then everything
stopped.
Power out.
Phones.
We went outside.
It was
cooler.
The leaves on the
ground seemed
almost
ornamental. The
detritus of
ceasing.

Return of the Son of the Monster Magnet
for Frank Zappa

For a kid growing up in suburban Memphis
with parents as plain and strong
as trees, it meant freedom.
The noise, the voices, the chaos, the motto:
we’re only in it for the money,
were tickets to anarchy, even for one so
timid, even for the one who
didn’t steal the Playboy. Every hour or so
the noise coming from my room
would bring a querulous visit.
What in God’s name? And I would smile,
as Jimmy Carl Black beat a ragged
tattoo, as Zappa’s liquid guitar sang through
my heart, music from under the bed.

Corey Mesler has published prose and/or poetry in Rattle, Canopic Jar, Contrary, Pindeldyboz, Mars Hill Review, Pikeville Review, Arkansas Review, Center, Small Press Review, Jabberwock Review, Orchid, uick Fiction, Timber Creek Review, Green Egg, Poetry Motel, Raintown Review, Potomac Review, Poetry Super Highway, Big Muddy, Slant, Wilmington Blues, Drought, Rockhurst Review, Wavelength, Lilliput Review, Pearl, Aurorean, Lucid Moon, Heeltap, Sunny Outside, Fish Drum, Into the Teeth of the Wind, Mid-American Poetry Review, Independence Boulevard, Midday Moon, Turnrow, Now Here Nowhere, Dust, Cherotic Revolutionary, Cotyledon, Buckle &, Iodine, Snakeskin (England), Flashpoint, Freewheelin’ (England), Pitchfork, Anthology, Poet Lore, Spillway, The Pegasus Review, Reverb, Kimera, Thema, Kumquat Meringue, Lonzie’s Fried Chicken, Both Sides Now, Electric Acorn.

He recently won the Moonfire Poetry Chapbook Competition and his chapbook, Chin-Chin in Eden, has just been published by Still Waters Press. One of his short stories was chosen for the 2002 edition of New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best, edited by Shannon Ravenel. His novel-in-dialogue, Talk, was published by Livingston Press in 2002. Raves from Lee Smith, Robert Olen Butler, Steve Stern, Debra Spark, Suzanne Kingsbury, Frederick Barthelme and John Grisham. He has been a book reviewer (for The Commercial Appeal, BookPage, The Memphis Flyer), fiction editor (for Ion Books/raccoon), university press sales rep, grant committee judge (for The Oregon Arts Council), father and son. With my wife I own Burke’s Book Store, one of the country’s oldest (1875) and best independent bookstores.

Email: Corey Mesler

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