Paul Ilechko


Side Effects of Gravity

The first thing that was it’s odd but drinking in overwhelmed by that emanates elsewhere and manipulated on the patio are blithely in the bleach you need to the hospital bed of summer as the raindrops as dogs unfold and flesh turning turning towards left coiled towards the waves between

I wanted to know where does typeface come from? here I sit patiently my feelings the odor of garlic from your hair gravity is chained and collects in pools where mosquitoes swimming that failed to kill them look beneath behind the tubes unhinged and splashing cut my skin into skeins of fur towards the glowing coals the abandoned rope and groping like a spinal cord that slowly surge the quicksand and the forest fire.

Evanescence

I am watching / your tongue / no longer able to (speak) /
and as I watch / (it) sticks / (and then) repeat (your tongue) /
I realize that / your tongue is / the usual stories

your tongue / a normal tongue /elaborate (but) /
not forked / but no longer / the usual (tongue) /
not rubbery / (but) able to / (repeat) myths /
the ones that / keep the dead / away

the myths / (the) membrane / between the / salt-packed /
(tales) that spin / between the / green of forest / (a) wound that /
(is) such a delicate / blue of ocean / between the / (wound that) /
festers / from / dreaming / to reality

and as you / (see) blazes not blue / or white /
(you) light the fire / not purple / just a haze of (energy) /
an evanescence / not red or yellow / energy displacing /
space as it acts as / deconstructive / like a ghost /
fire does (as fire does) /changing between /
(states) destructive and / states (otherwise)

a ghost that / seamlessly as (energy) /
merges between / (the state of) water filling (a bucket) /
(between) brick and air as / a (water filled) bucket.



Elsewhere

Talking strange
your country had acres
stitched and compact

interpretation of space where
future events staked out
the necessary      the wild

and the dangerous
imposing harmony
in shredded clothes

in derelict dwelling places
wrapping stones
in breath      the spark

the quilt      the doorway men
a hummingbird seen
as grimy assassins

cowered in corners
and suddenly a hymn
was heard in the sunlight.



Light of Desire
(after Mark Strand, all lines derived from poems in “Man and Camel”)

I had been an explorer and now it was just but the children cried and I rose where with their patios out past theirs was the crows had flown and the dark became and desire became and ashen light I closed my eyes to dwell that sudden

in my youth I sat on the porch smoking one more thing to do “come back” above the marble gates there were guards and pools the cemetery the bliss of another age and it was cold desire the light fell across the floor briefly in that light paradise.

The Day the Horses Wept

Your body floods stiletto
      a killing move      flooding
vulnerable to the remnants
of fever      remnants chained
      and perfect      as the pregnant
moon swims monsoon thickness

a golden sky-halo shells
its wings      as paper steals
your attention      paper wings
      winding golden from the valley
      where sentiment treads lightly
and horses are said to weep

horses weeping golden
in the wake of a torn burlap
sack laid to waste      weeping
torn and rough      with horses
under dappled shade       weeping
      from distant memories of oak.




Paul Ilechko is the author of the chapbooks Bartok in Winter (Flutter Press, 2018) and Graph of Life (Finishing Line Press, 2018). His work has appeared in a variety of journals, including Manhattanville Review, West Trade Review, Yes Poetry, Night Music Journal and Rock & Sling. He lives with his partner in Lambertville, NJ.
 
 
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