Robert Beveridge (he/him) makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry in Akron, OH. Recent/upcoming appearances in Page and Spine, The Pointed Circle, and Failed Haiku, among others.

GACY NEVER DID THIS

Obsessed with pictures
of clowns. Acrylic, gouache,
camel hair brushes. You sit
late into night, search
for the perfect shade of crimson
to mix into clown white.
You realize your error,
replace the canvas
with a mirror.

HIGH-RISK BEHAVIOR IN CINEMASCOPIC RAIN[1]

Prisms bounced
Against the mahogany wall
as cars pass by and light the drops
on the window. Steak, bloody, so right
you can cut it with a fork,
and you do. A drop
of bovine communion smears
your lower lip, as later
the sacred rites we share
will leave droplets around your mouth.

There has been talk of safety,
of myth and reality and the various
piece of two sordid
and prolific pasts,
there has been agony
and latenight drunken rages,
but we always reach
the same conclusion:

this thing we have, this
is worth dying for

---

[1]     The title is a quote from Gillian Conoley’s poem “The World”.

QUELL

Cleveland, OH, 13Jun97

The desire to return
to animal nature

to dive into the medulla

overload senses
with prolonged blasts 
of distorted steel mills
the firefight
the crush of suffocation

how the knife
descends the sternum
flesh pulled back
to reveal the organs
again and again
how the pleasure needs the assault

burdened the mind
may shut down reject flee

ears regaled
with one hundred thirty decibels
may falter

at the end
half the room
is empty

all the women
have stayed