A. J. Huffman



Three Stories

jumped
                    out of a burning
building,
                    screamed their dying
content
                    into the wind
on their
way
down
   ↓
   ↓
   → The first story was a comedy of errors.
        Bounced twice                 landing.
                                        before
        face ↑, staring at its own
                               dangling
                               participles.
(They got tangled in the back-alley laundry lines.
They’ll be wrinkled as hell in the morning.)

   → The second story was an ethereal piece.
        Prosaic metaphors drove it
                               into the ground,
        but not before it terrified the remaining
        tenants by passing through a few
        walls
                             as it weaved
        its way
                               into solid
        impact.
(Don’t mourn too heavily, ghostly vessels have
a penchant for resurfacing in the odd hours before dawn.)

   → The third story was short and straight
        to the point. A minimalistic epic
        in sixteen words:
        One match.
        One alarm.
        Thirteen floors.
        No good option.
        Quick beats cooked.
        We all fall down.
(Too bad this isn’t that fairy tale. A few king’s
men and some Krazy Glue just might put us back
together again.)



Of Icebergs

misleading
molehills
migrating
                  underwater
mountains
clink!
sink
         ships
historically



Sensing Poetry

A flash, forward vision falls into repetition. Mind
catches, cannot release the replay. Momentary
encapsulation stretches to infinity. The solution,
forced reconstruction of mental palace, plain
paper and pseudo-intellectual drops of ink.

I. Smelling Poetry

The blank
expanse of white 8
x 11½ pre-scarred with appropriate
                                                                   ly spaced
rules, emits subtle hints
of stifling.
                   I slant it backwards,
breathing in the easy break                of leaded
cacophony. Erasers be damned! My hand
relays the sanitized scrub
                  of anarchy.

II. Seeing Poetry

Bastardized vocabularic terminologies
s       c       a       t       t       e       r                  Skip
the frame of contemporary standardized
line
        breaks. Forget
to remember basic rules of elementary
grammar
punctuation. Pretentious
eyes paralyzed
                               by my
                                              disregard
for prehistorical precedent.

III. Hearing Poetry

Laughing
back from the page, disdainful
alliteration dares to defy                contentions
that sound
                                  and meaning cannot
                co-exist in the same
phrase. Phase
                               out their belligerent banter.
This is basic
definition of term:
                                              art of rhythmical composition . . .
for exciting pleasure . . . imaginative,
                or elevated
thoughts. The echo of this retort
splits the                                                                            masses,
                    minds begin to take
                                                             sides.

IV. Touching Poetry

Fingers purse against pen, pound with excitement. Ink
salivates, bleeds through its square
catalyst without concern. Words,
like scars,
are intended to heal.

V. Tasting Poetry

Page grows pulse when devoured
                                                                by practice
d tongue. Regurgitated regailment
of syllabolic symbalistic diatritribe resonates
against even the most resistant organs.
Irrespective of stylization,
                                                    formation,
intonation, and enunciation, the pen must be
allowed to speak.



A.J. Huffman has published nine solo chapbooks and one joint chapbook through various small presses. She also has two new full-length poetry collections forthcoming, Another Blood Jet (Eldritch Press) and A Few Bullets Short of Home (mgv2>publishing). She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and her poetry, fiction, and haiku have appeared in hundreds of national and international journals, including Labletter, The James Dickey Review, Bone Orchard, EgoPHobia, Kritya, and Offerta Speciale, in which her work appeared in both English and Italian translation. She is also the founding editor of Kind of a Hurricane Press.
 
 
previous page     contents     next page