One Poem by Jessie Lifton & Damon Hubbs (Collaboration)

 

Behind the Boathouse (Ode to the Scottish Bluebell) 

 

“God, how the night reels stricken! 

She shrieks with orange 

Spark 

The mortar’s lash and cannon’s crash 

Have crucified the dark.”  

 

— 

 

Behind the Boathouse  

I saw you, harebell in bloom.  

With skin like Venetian dust.  

Not white, not large, not great.  

I held you, flower with no perfume, 

Between my pointer 

and ring finger 

 

I run from the porch and 

Epochs of Encounters with the dead 

             Burn, wickie, burn and  

                          Grab the head, and pull, and twist.  

             How the crab eats itself! 

The coral insects from your ears 

Years and years 

The mass on 

the 

porch 

smells 

of 

Im- 

mor- 

telle 

 

Behind the boathouse 

I heard you, harebell.  

A voice like grapeshot, your bloom undone 

a death knell quivering in the sun- 

slacked grass. How many angels 

dance on the head of a pin.  

How many days have come to pass 

since the bullseye window turned upside down 

 

Years and years from 

Gloucester to Guadalcanal 

lost like a barbiturate down a drain 

I set fire to the planes of sodden leaves 

In the backyard, beneath no rain.  

I, not white, not large, not great  

Kiss the place between  

the sheep-horse wall and the  

wasted wide beyond 

There, all day the poison arrows fall 

 

I come hot from hell 

I squall 

hot as bowel and pit 

I beat  

with bricks, and fists, and sticks. 

I am the sparrow 

who killed Cock Robin for you 

behind the boathouse  

where the harebell grows  

in rusted dew  

 

Behind the boathouse 

I find your blue-blooded trigger 

I have slept alone for so long  

the first taste of your tongue was tourbillon, 

the second taste stretches me 

through galleries bombed like Uffizi 

                                  The crabs burn wickie, I burn them 

                          I, the beating drum, 

             Some things last forever. 

The rageful wave of survival 

I did twist the head 

The crucifixion of the sky by rifle 

I did burn the dead 

 

Behind the boathouse 

Some things last forever, but only in hell 

You, harebell— 

Not white, not large, not great, 

Smell not of immortelle 

Not of rain 

Nor of mortar shells 

I pray to the name of Har-e-bell. 

 

Oh crumble dear and rise again 

Behind the boathouse  

In that hidden glen. 

Witched Thimble, little bell 

press your palms against my face 

Hail     and farewell.

Jessie Lifton's work has previously appeared in The Writer Magazine, Bizarre Publishing House, and APOCALYPSE CONFIDENTIAL. She is a student at DePaul University in Chicago, IL. Jessie Lifton is on X @jessiechrxst. 

Damon Hubbs writes poems about Thulsa Doom, Italo disco & girls who cry at airports. He's the author of three chapbooks (most recently Charm of Difference, from Back Room Poetry).

Recent work in Antiphony Journal, The Argyle Literary Magazine, BRUISER, Misery Tourism, DarkWinter Lit, and elsewhere. Twitter @damon_hubbs