Five Poems by CL Bledsoe

 

Bird Feeder

 

Everyone suddenly realized they

were afraid. The wind still blows,

too hard, sometimes. It won’t blow

me back to my bed, no matter how

loose my clothes. I offer up my

number in tufts of confetti, but all

I get in return are citations from

the city. Even the meter maid crosses

the street when she sees me coming.

I park illegally with an open

and waiting heart. We were always

getting old, is the thing. We were

always less than we wanted to be,

somehow we could explain perfectly,

yet it didn’t make a lot of sense. I took

down my birdfeeder because the birds

made too much of a mess. They came,

one by one, to shit on my balcony

and glare through the door. Expectation

is the thing. Someone said that who

died alone a long time ago.

 

The Cave

 

The blind man lingers outside the cave,

as everyone he’s known cowers in fear

of shadows. The only ones who know

what casts them are the ones whose

company won the contract. It was a

government gig. Long-term. Took

years. You better believe they over-

charged us on stationary. Butt-warming

toilet seats. They put their kids

through college on the dimes they made

from designing the mechanisms

of our greatest fears and failures. Don’t

even get me started on the company,

overseas, that underbid to get the actual

construction gig. The secret is that it

was mostly the same folks. They’d

fly to Korea to oversee the factory—

the actual work was done by slave

children as all actual work is done.

Mai Taies on the beach—this is a private

beach only the very wealthy know

about. Those kind of people don’t read

poetry, so it’s none of you, temporarily

embarrassed millionaires as you may

think you are. The blind man used

to do a little technical writing for them—

work for hire. He couldn’t say what

he actually did. Process manuals.

Technical communications. Even

the executive overviews were nonsense.

His 401k dried up in the war. A lot

of people wish they’d listened to assholes

like him in those days. 

 

Coffee Table

 

Two people, holding hands in the dark,

waiting for entertainment. Something

that never sells self-help books is the fact

that lying is the best exercise. None of us

is who we’d like our pets to believe

we are, and we’ll never be. The enemy

came from the north. They swept over

us like wildfire, bullets strafing. I pushed

the child into the ditch just as the first

explosion came. Maybe it wasn’t a child.

Maybe it was a duvet cover with a face

pattern. But still, it spoke to me. As I ran

to the orphanage door—or was it my balcony—

the coffee table lunged for my toe.

Somehow, I persevered. That’s the story

I’ll be telling the historians as soon

as they find someplace to park.  

I only did what anyone would’ve done

if they’d been me.

The Dealer

 

Suckers hate the man beside them but never

raise their eyes to the dealer. He might stop

renting cards if we hurt his feelings. Romantic

types call it love. I’m not the kind of person

who sets himself on fire without looking both

ways first. At a certain point, you realize

the man who told you to hold the target to

the sky isn’t coming back. Children call him

Daddy. The reason we hurt the ones who love

us is because they happen to be nearby. Civic-

minded types call it community. The tabletop

is such a pleasing shade of green, stripped

meticulously, soft to the touch. A perfect place

to lay my head when I’ve shrugged it off,

for all the good it’s ever done me.

 

Dirt Love

 

They say loss can weigh,

but maybe the dirt is just

lonely. It engineered all

the wrong to be close to

you. You selfish mendicant.

All this time, it’s been pulling

you down so it can caress

your pretty face, smell

the light in your hair. It calls

and calls your name, and you

let it go to voicemail. Your

mouth should fill with shame

the next time you’re chit-

chatting in an elevator, or

bothering a broken brain on

the bus. You had love on your

fingers and you didn’t even

taste it. Maybe I’m wrong.

Maybe you’re just afraid to

embrace the soil, settle into

its warmth. You get what

you give, everybody knows

that, but sometimes, you get

before or even without having

to. There’s not a one of us

who wouldn’t die for a kind

word from the void. I can’t

even look at you anymore

without seeing everything

I’ve squandered. You meant

well, I’m sure. We always do.

CL Bledsoe - Raised on a rice and catfish farm in eastern Arkansas, CL Bledsoe is the author of more than thirty books, including the poetry collections Riceland, The Bottle Episode, and his newest, Having a Baby to Save a Marriage, as well as his latest novels Goodbye, Mr. Lonely and The Saviors. Bledsoe lives in northern Virginia with his daughter.