Poetry: Selections from John Tustin

Another Summer in SC

 

This morning and

Every morning

The sun is out there –

 

A lemon cut open

And spitting acid

Right into your eyes.

Cluttered Box

The ceiling is coming down on me,

piece by piece.

Plaster in my hair,

dust in my eyes,

I’m wheezing.

As it falls in on me

the floor is giving way.

It’s dark black,

I’m down in a hole

among the cracked floorboards

and plaster pieces.

There is light somewhere,

but not here.

Water dripping in a terrible

rhythmic mumble.

My head buzzes.

If you came to try

to pull me out of the rubble

I would not go.

 

The ceiling is gone.

The floor is gone.

It’s just the walls

and the wind

and the pitch black and rubble

I lie in,

blamed and ruined,

waiting out the clock.

You didn’t put me here,

no one did.

Bad luck, circumstance.

No sustenance,

no movement,

no chance.

 

I cry without tears

or passion.

Alone in the cluttered box

of jagged debris.

The blood and dirt in my nose

the only smell.

The dripping

the only sound.

The demons emerging

from the hell of the diminished soul

the only sight.

No movement.

No hope.

Not here.

Day Drinking 

 

I do some day drinking

And sometimes it goes well,

Sometimes not

But there comes a time,

About the time the room gets dark,

That I contemplate tomorrow

And when I say contemplate tomorrow

It does not go beyond

What I will have for breakfast

Should my heart not explode

And I wake up in the morning.

Will it be two eggs over easy with wheat toast and bacon

Or will I choose the link sausage?

One out of thirty times I have pancakes instead

And fifteen out of twenty

I sleep in with regret,

After having a dream of perfect feet and thick thighs

Of which when I awaken

I have vague memory.

Hell, as long as I wake up

With my wanting

And vague memories of

Having had

It’s something better than

Nothing.

 

I Found These Tears

 

I found these tears

And I picked them up

And I asked her,

“Are these yours?”

 

She said they were

So I poured them

Into the cup where

My tears were held.

 

Not a word between us

As we took turns

Stirring and we took turns

Drinking.

Somebody Terrible 

 

I want somebody terribly.

I want somebody terrible.

I want somebody who does not want me.

I tell her she’s beautiful and she responds, “You’re so sweet”

While averting her gaze to her buzzing phone.

I want her body in spite of my body.

I want to smell the pillow where her nighttime hair has fallen.

I can’t help it. I can’t control it.

I want her attention even though

She flicks my attention with her index finger

Bouncing off of her thumb like a high diver,

Snapping through the air to stun me,

Obtrusive fly,

And sending me in a tailspin

Down down down to the carpet

Where she may step on me later,

My frozen wings and body crunching under her heel

But maybe not.

If she doesn’t step on me

It might be out of pity

The way a lone villager may have pitied The Monster

With his psycho-child brain and his rage and his rags.

If she does step on me

It will be an accident

Because

She’ll have already certainly forgotten all about me already.

John Tustin’s poetry has appeared in many disparate literary journals in the last dozen years. For a complete list of his publication credits click here.