{"id":2296,"date":"2013-10-30T16:49:06","date_gmt":"2013-10-30T16:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/?page_id=2296"},"modified":"2013-11-02T01:49:37","modified_gmt":"2013-11-02T01:49:37","slug":"missi-rasmussen-october-2013","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/archives\/missi-rasmussen-october-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Missi Rasmussen, October 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

Procession<\/strong><\/p>\n

First, the police motorcycles roll by
\ndrifting somberly like sticks in a stream
\nstopping others as they slip by.
\nThen a vast line of cars
\none by one with their headlights on
\nMen in suits sitting stiff and staring
\nstraight ahead.
\nWomen holding tissues
\nto their delicate faces as they weep
\ninto them until they crumble.
\nChildren stare blankly, boldly
\nout rear car windows
\nand hope not to get caught
\nwith their lollipops on the seats.
\nThe Big Black looms ahead as if it were
\na ship pushing through the pressure
\nof ocean waters. Who does it usher?<\/p>\n

72-year-old woman with hands gently
\nclasping each other, one of them
\nwearing her wedding ring and the ring
\nher daughter gave her.
\nThe woman could no longer stand
\non her own, and the daughter couldn\u2019t
\nstand watching her mother fall down
\nany more.<\/p>\n

15-year-old boy from an accidental
\nshooting or an accidental suicide
\nor intentional suicide,
\nbut the family is in denial,
\nand the note he left behind
\nwas hidden by the girlfriend he left behind.
\nHis head was reconstructed,
\nbut he was pale and pocked
\nand did not resemble orange clay.<\/p>\n

2-year-old boy neglected by his mother.
\nLoathed and shoved and moved around
\nand pushed too hard.
\nLaying in green overalls with a stuffed elephant
\nunder a blue satin sky.<\/p>\n

Wheels squeal.
\nAn accident up ahead.
\nRadio blares something not noticed before.
\nBirds separate and dissect their \u201cV.\u201d
\nThey swoop onto power lines as if
\nan imaginary string holding them together
\nwas suddenly let go.<\/p>\n

The sun whispers on Kansas prairie cheeks.
\nIt\u2019s almost five o\u2019clock.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Anadiplosis*<\/strong><\/p>\n

A poem can be written in a form.
\nForm is the fur of the poem.
\nOf the poem is a blend of left flush
\nFlush right and an eight-line stanza.
\nStanza number is the sum of the now.
\nNow what the __________. Tell me it\u2019s not!
\nNot the mathematical Fibonacci sequence.
\nSequence is mere speculation.
\nSpeculate that I am an autosalesman.
\nI am an autosalesman, and I love you.
\nYou are the eight-line stanza with the beat count.
\nCount out the sum of the previous stanzas.
\nStanzas are feminine and lines are masculine.
\nMasculine endings are also called rising endings.
\nRising is an onomatopoeia.
\nAhn-uh-mah-tuh-pee-uh
\nUh, splat, sizzle, buzz, puff.
\nPuff is rethinking Hamlet\u2019s soliloquy.
\nSoliloquy is a silly word, and I hope it\u2019s not a typo.
\nType oh a poem. Written in a form. A poem.<\/p>\n

*Repetition of the last word or phrase of a line or stanza at the beginning of the next line or stanza.<\/p>\n

 
\nInside<\/strong><\/p>\n

Standing still
\nin the northwest corner of 300 acres
\nof corn fields and grazing pastures,
\nI have been here for so long.<\/p>\n

I watch the tangerine sun liquidate as it
\nsinks into the earth. I then sit in silence
\nonly interrupted by the cicadas
\nsinging and the growling of the barn\u2019s
\nwood, settling.<\/p>\n

And the rhythmic squeaking of the
\ntreehouse step, hanging from the
\ntrunk by one rusted nail. And the mewing of the
\nnewborn kittens balling up inside a hollow
\ntree trunk next to their mother who just
\ncame back from the barn with a
\nbarely alive mouse in her bite.<\/p>\n

They are sleeping inside. Side by side. The
\nman and the woman. One of them will not live
\nthrough next year. And
\nthe other will die without her.<\/p>\n

They breathe in unison. In and out,
\ntogether.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe Neighbor No One Knew<\/strong><\/p>\n

She lived down the street from my best friend, and when she died of Hepatitis C, we all heard about it and ran down there to raid her house. She was reclusive, but at night, when the streets were dark, and the trash was on the curb, she went out and collected discarded junk and transformed it into art between fixes.<\/p>\n

Now she was the Dead Girl.<\/p>\n

We scurried up and down the street carrying with us armloads of the Dead Girl\u2019s artistic trash while snickering and thinking we were glad it wasn\u2019t us. Empty soup cans strung together and painted. Road signs bent and twisted into shapes like birds and stars. Clothing and quilts she had made from discarded scraps of fabric. Hats, aprons, pants. Sculptures made from plastic milk crates, mangled to look like a man or a machine or a house. And the armless bust of a woman with no eyes and brown painted hair with an old rusty propeller attached to where an arm should be.<\/p>\n

We called her PropellerArm.<\/p>\n

We stuffed my best friend\u2019s living room with so much of the Dead Girl\u2019s junk that there was no place to sit.
\nSo we stood and looked at the paintings on cardboard, the laminated flowers, the dolls\u2019 heads perched on top of traffic cones, the tiki torch windmills, the precious, reclaimed scraps. The Dead Girl had just been buried. Her boyfriend sat at home in the dark. Junkies everywhere were making deals.<\/p>\n

And PropellerArm stared back at us with white eye sockets.<\/p>\n

 
\nPhilosophy<\/strong><\/p>\n

The wine is in the glass and the glass in on the table. The cat is on the table drinking the milk in the bowl. The milk is in the cat. The cat knocks over the wineglass despite him usually being reliably graceful. The wineglass shatters on the floor and the wine spills out. The wine is on the floor and the wineglass is in pieces. The cat has padded away. The wine is seeping into the rug which soaks in this drink and a big red spot is forming and the glass is in tiny shards which will not be sufficiently plucked out of the carpet which will be stained with the wine until it is replaced but the cat has crept over the rug and the shards are in the cat and small red spots are forming. The glass does not exist. The wine is in the rug. The cat is licking itself with a milky tongue.<\/p>\n

The shards are sharp and they are. The glass is. The cat does not exist.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Missi Rasmussen is an award-winning writer and Pushcart nominee whose work has been published widely in print and online. She is co-editor of the literary journal The Bluest Aye<\/em> and is a professor of English and creative writing in the Kansas City area where she lives with her son and daughter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Procession First, the police motorcycles roll by drifting somberly like sticks in a stream stopping others as they slip by. Then a vast line of cars one by one with their headlights on Men in suits sitting stiff and staring straight ahead. Women holding tissues to their delicate faces as they weep into them until […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":934,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2296","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nMissi Rasmussen, October 2013 - Full Of Crow: Poetry (Archives)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/archives\/missi-rasmussen-october-2013\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Missi Rasmussen, October 2013 - Full Of Crow: Poetry (Archives)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Procession First, the police motorcycles roll by drifting somberly like sticks in a stream stopping others as they slip by. 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