N a p a l m H e a l t h S p a : R e p o r t 2 0 1 3 : S p e c i a l E d i t i o n

L o n g P o e m M a s t e r p i e c e s o f t h e P o s t b e a t s

SARAH JEANNE PETERS

Incubation Ritual

vex yr persuasion, wreck and snuff out

with savage prints of camouflage

with fuck and fury and falseness

gutshot with sea-anemone bullet holes

sinister name cuts through

scar across aching ventricle

names common as coelacanths

trip wire to ordinary darkness

swallows won’t follow

though yr trek stirs

a world thick with gnats

rank with electrical fires

come on man the instant of death is drown in my dress

Sun eclipsed by the vinyl upholstery of back seats

and all of my gestures are locked behind the bars of yr regard

I am freezing now the furnace of yr voice has gone cold

my foil, his fin appearing reluctantly beneath my raging fist-shaped waves

commandeers sentient energy of navies resurrected by my lasers’ fine aim

yr swagger-like fire of ecstasy damped by its own prurient glamour

& appetite for angel consorts, heavens habituate to yr quotidian gravity

& left

the danger, lost noise solved and resolved

erased by smoke and conniving

my graceless hand in yr sinister one

rich blood turbocharged with gas-station energy drink

that pumps through veins

with no help of a heart

Avalon can’t help, either but turns to serrated blade

renders thee entranced

& left

complete with abyss & leads you

to my apparition cased by spies with uncommon faces

like the velvet lure of a bird’s reflection

never letting go of regret or revelation of child visionaries

half-mourned before dead   

& left

no grudge against ancient clocks as metal sainted falcons push against rusted locks like you vain as gold

dug angels from yr future mansions, lord of zigzag angles, a tourist at cemeteries

tarnishing the mourning not honorable of character or purpose

a narrow ray of light if cloudless at Newgrange becoming once a year

dispensation brings

forth a rareness of penitents

tears away flesh

of my flesh

gentle retro-cognition

on my serene mind

the imposition of yr manic one

I resemble yr voice now as it says eternity or sacrament

yr voice makes monsters that exact justice with flames & blocks roads riven to stop time

I drape the desert to cover myself & comb yr nocturnal lyrics

through mass of my tangled mane

I pretend water is yr disciple & sleep in flowering seaweed of yr murky thoughts

salt of the sea dissolves yr soldier’s shoulders beneath my folded hands

& left

waves velocity equal to the volume of stars

elegant as a noose, beasts as common as long trains fall from wedding dresses

grow and twist like alligator gars

jealous lionesses who never say quite what they mean compose music out of

seizures

& electro-convulsive therapy

cicadas’ incessant shrill I prefer to ride the cracked sidewalk to the hydrogen-igniting airships of yr curiously short death

& left

bride of folie a deux past waiting out the silent trouble

& left

a man demented, beat with fists broke down in front of menhood set to avenge death of yr own word (Morant missed burial by an hour)

just 18 minutes for you, armed with venality flanked by irregulars, borders’ son carelessly reveals acumen

for cant

& left

monography and sulfurous smoke from burnt stockings that paved the way

below heaven

ignite the paper flowers with burnt out luminescence

& left

millions of busted shells returned to my unconsecrated planet

ground, unrecognizable, spoiled to have each grain

subordinate in the serial of each precise occasion

never yr theory the severed range becomes precise

restrained behind his firing line quartered by an hour, submerged

never at home in his sands

& left

on the particular hour of a certain night a bullet in the chamber of my finesse 

rooms meant for you were obscure, inviolate previously lodged in the fascination of bone capturing my breath

in the chutes and ladders of my net-like stockings

remake me one day lux as mink.

Sarah Jeanne Peters is a poet, teacher, and behavioral therapist. Her publications include the chapbook Curses and other love poems. Find her poems in Abandon Automobile: Anthology of Detroit City Poetry, Poems from Penny Lane, Watching the Wheels: A Black Bird, Lyre Lyre, and The International Worker. She has taught American and British literature since 1993.