Poetry: Selections from John Tustin

The Cork Beside the Bottle

Right now

She is celebrating

The New Year

In a room full of family

To whom she is

A stranger.

 

She has

Removed

The cork from

The wine bottle

And she is

Pouring

Herself glass

Upon glass

Upon glass

 

And with every

Swig

I appear

Before her

More and more

Vividly,

Sitting in

The chair

Across from

Her.

 

With her

Draining

Of the bottle

I kiss her

Cheek

And a tear

Falls

To the table.

 

The cork lies

Limply

Beside the

Tear

And the drained

Bottle,

Now empty

Of wine,

Of potential,

Of

Use.

Drywall

A world existed before words.

There was other communication

And it is communication our dinosaur brains

Acknowledge without our input

Or acquiescence

In the moment we live beyond conscious thought.

 

Maybe that world will return,

If only from person to person,

One of us at a time,

Not all at once

But a gradual degradation

Until all one can do

Is point as our mouths

Eek and ook.

 

I think about that

As I grow older by a day,

Less knowing by a day, narrower

And more and more

Running out of

Words.

 

How wonderful would it be

To find the well has gone dry

Just at the moment you knew

No longer could you thirst?

Gypsy Specter

I have a dream that I am in bed

And far away there is a kitchen light buzzing,

Harsh and fluorescent.

I want to get up and turn it off but I can’t move.

Outside, in the hallway, intruders await.

I feel their presence.

I want to check to make sure the door is locked

But I can’t move.

 

There is a ghoul on my bed,

Sitting at the corner.

She looks off into nothing,

This Gypsy specter.

I yell for her to look at me

But my voice only exists in my mind.

She’s dressed in white peasant clothing.

I can’t see her face.

 

The light is buzzing.

The ghoul sits still.

I can’t move or respond to her passivity.

 

I wake up alone in nothing but darkness

And when I am certain it was just a bad dream

I pretend I am nestled in the arms of an angel,

Her wings enfolding me like hands clasped in prayer.

 

I fall back to sleep and don’t remember any more dreams.

I Own My Darkness

I own my darkness.

I revel in my joylessness

And in that I find my joy

Like the drug addict who is sick

And plunges the needle to not feel his sickness for a few hours.

 

I am my darkness

And I do not shun the light –

The light shuns me in fear

Because I am such darkness.

I open my window and the sun disappears into sudden rain

Or it shines blistering into my eyes until I relent,

Until I retreat – I have no choice.

 

I have my nights alone

And it is there that I find my type of meditation:

The books open and I read a page of one, a page of another

And then I close my eyes and listen to the music.

Closing my eyes, lying still –

The sweat no longer trickles, the headache gives way to the

Words that come to me, just like that.

 

The words are a darkness that bring warmth to my blood.

 

These words also bring to life my darkness that would otherwise rot

And then spread the rot to the rest of me.

These words raise the dead inside of me;

My ghosts inhabit this room and I greet them casually.

They arrive most nights to remind me why I am me.

The room is calm and cool and their breath forms in the air when they speak –

One in the doorway, one leaned up against my dresser,

Several dozen sitting on the bed with me.

They taunt me and they comfort me

With their dread and with their reliability.

 

I am my darkness.

I ask you to not be afraid when I hide from you

As I embrace myself instead,

My eyes as cold and blue as ice fighting the sun to live.

My darkness is me and inside this darkness

Is a tiny light out of sight, protected by my folded wings

That can never, must never

Open

 

And no, I cannot show you

But if you put your ear close enough to my breathing

You will know that light is there inside me

With its tiny constant crackle and flicker.

 

I own my darkness.

My darkness owns me.

Don’t worry about it.

I don’t worry about it anymore,

My black wings folded over

A tiddly but brave sphere of natural light

Whose crackle and flicker

Reverberate in the shadows

Of the vast tomb that is my darkness,

That is in the pulse and the fibers of me.

 

The Roses are Burning

The roses are burning in gardens of hell.

The air stinks of melted plastic.

The sky is a mottled choking blue.

The roses are drowning in the piss

Of the millions.

The roots seeped with rot.

The dirt is a powdery gray.

The roses are in flames.

Acrid putrid gorgeous flames.

And nothing will ever grow

In the ashes that remain.

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.