EZINE
car
HOME  ABOUT  FICTION  POETRY  ART  SUBMIT  NEWS  MORBID  ZINES  ODDITIES  BEWARE  CONTACT  PLAGUE  SHRIEKS  JOE.R.LANSDALE  BOOKS  FILMS  STORE

Joris Soeding

The February Editor's Pick Poet is Joris Soeding

Please feel free to email Joris at: heartbybridge@gmail.com

Joris Soeding

CIRCLES

with wife and son he returns home after twenty-seven years
first hanging a Chicago Cubs poster

everything takes him to the train tracks
library books and a house key with red rabbit’s foot

can’t ward off that tunnel with his brother
even the greasers, with their blades and chucks, can’t run

three of them trapped behind flames of a black ’55 Chevy
freight illuminates those unforgettable walls

today they’re his students, history class, seniors
white shirts remarkably crisp, glazed leather jackets

they need him and the one that scrambled
they need to reenact it without error for chance without hell

THE BÊTE NOIRE PROGRESSION

three friends reacquainted at the funeral of the fourth
in hours, champagne, full moon, and rain at the Crescent View Cemetery
one has been bitten on her arms
Sammy meows at open doors of the other
third with small fires on his floors
Chopin playing on the piano with no one on the bench
this is all supposed to last for one moon cycle

OSKAR AND ELI

Mimicking his bully, he asks the tree in snow to squeal
unsheathing a knife from his jacket, thrusting it into the bark
behind him is the new girl from apartment 15

at the pool they call for him, declining stairs
unfound at his locker

in the courtyard at night he begins a Rubik’s Cube
loans it to the girl until Monday
her belly growls after he departs

she returns it, early and solved
demonstrates to him colors, sides, first rotations
he examines her hair, cowered, in stark lights

band-aid to cheek, he tells mom that he fell on a rock at recess
the truth is only for the girl
whipped by one of three boys in the pool parking lot after hours

he introduces Morse code to her
knuckles sliding on the wall well after dinner and TV

on lake’s ice he hits the leader in the ear
it still bleeds despite much gray from mouths

he treads the pool, spitting water repeatedly, playful
one of the boys begins to speak
almost apologetic and trying too hard to be friendly
she looks through the window, unnoticed
hand on the glass and conversant with his enemies

Joris Soeding’s third chapbook, In Between the Places Where Night Falls, will be published by Lummox Press in 2015. His poems have appeared in publications such as Columbia Poetry Review, Concho River Review, MiPOesias, Pebble Lake Review, San Pedro River Review, Spillway, The Prose-Poem Project. “Circles” and “Oskar and Eli” were first published by Thirteen Myna Birds. “The Bête Noire Progression” was first published by Belle Rêve Literary Journal.

Joris is a 5th/6th grade writing teacher in Chicago, where he resides with his wife, son, and daughter.