Adam Fieled


Architecture and Levitation

The subliminal nature of architecture—
demonstrating, for the human brain, what
space is, how it might be saturated, without always
obtruding upon our consciousness— as I
drove around King of Prussia on those
brooding semester breaks, a subtle sense of
enchantment grew, hinged to what my
future might hold, as one who writes. King
of Prussia Mall, Tower Records, random
commercial strips with record stores, restaurants,
even the bus station where I was claimed
at the inception of the break, were all planned &
executed to manifest a sense of levitation,
& left my brain somewhere in the world Other, forever—



South Street

The girls Chris & I used to drive down
to South Street— Erica, Nicole, Dominique—
rights/privileges extended to us as Seniors—
I see now that, as usual, the glitter/grime of
South Street at night (Tower Records big red/
yellow sign shone as a talisman, consecrating us)
hid something darker, deeper, deadened
against our polite passes. As to what
world we might’ve woken to had we
known the truth then— I remember
bluster, braggadocio (who had who on back seats),
I also remember the suave sense we had
that these girls, callow as they were, were ours.
We could’ve used a brain-scanner, or a noose.



Russian Roulette

She should’ve been a redhead, I thought,
as she drew the blinds, locked the red wine
in the cabinet, drained her glass, & bounced
into bed— not precisely the Don Juana of
her postures, more like a vision of Pre-Raphaelite
schizophrenia, as one reads in Victorian novels.
Writing this, after ten years, it seems dulcet,
peaceful, rather than a plunge into a life or death
game of Russian Roulette, which is what it was
for us. The book I’d just published sat on the
living room sofa, as if there could be any other
reason for all this, the wine, the bullets; what I
put into her was another kind of book. The full
dome effect, for her, caused a thousand suicides.



Hit or Miss

As the world between her legs tightened around
her, what she saw in bed with me was stark: okra,
stamens, roots, all that in nature coalesces in erect
growth; and a shadow father bent, then erect, then
bent again, perverse from amassing wealth in a world
whose submissiveness poisons him. Beneath the sultry,
wooded surface, what I saw was a semi-frightened
animal, along for an all-night ride (gruesomeness of
4 a.m. New Hampshire sun), knife thusly thrusting
into the backs of everyone around her, managing
to have stamina enough against constraint to take
what she was taking. The mattress thumped: above,
an angel was unable to conceal laughter, understanding
it was all in the script, including the garish sun’s leer.



Birthday

She can’t believe this: no one’s taking her out.
She specifically hinted to all these guys: hey, it’s
my birthday this weekend, why don’t we do some
thing? The thing is, the mirror beams back to her
exquisite, dazzling perfection: silky red hair, bright
green eyes, big tits, all wrapped in a smile that says
everything these guys want to hear. So, she strips
for herself. She’s amazed at how well the parts fit
together: the tiny bit of flab on her stomach (that
guys love), the way her legs move, white of them
next to black panties, how each time she purses
her lips she gives herself an orgasm just from how
sexy she is. But the thing wrong is just that no one
calls anymore, all these guys don’t call. Her body
(of course, no duh) doesn’t exist unless there’s a
guy looking at it. She has candy hearts left over
from Valentines Day, takes a bunch to munch as
she steps over to the window, hoping some guy
notices her topless form hovering over Race Street.




Adam Fieled is a poet based in Philadelphia. His latest book is The Posit Trilogy (Argotist E-Books, 2017). Forthcoming this summer from Eratio Editions is The White Album (2nd Edition). A second edition of Equations (Blue & Yellow Dog Press, 2011) also appeared this year.
 
 
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