Three poems by Chris Deal

Into Detroit

All color
drained from
creation save
the illusion
of gray.

The absence
of the world
beneath

and the
pressure growing
behind
my forehead

rising in
frequency
with each
damn
mile between
her lips

and mine.

In Detroit
there is
only the
idle crowds
and

the memory
of a
touch.

In the
clouds there
is only
the blur
of memories.

i wrote a poem once

i wrote a poem once
and when i showed it
to people, smart people,
no one liked it.

they said the syntax
was flawed
as was the meter
that it lacked a proper
rhyme scheme or it wasn’t
and would never be part
of the canon, that there was
no format
it fit.

and at first i felt bad, because
it was my poem
and i loved that poem.

soon, though
i sat back down
and looked it over
thought of doing something
to correct it
in the eyes of someone else
but every time
i tried to improve that poem
it came apart in my hands
like a favorite toy
irreparably broken.

every time i tried to make it better
based off of what those people
all of who are much
smarter than me, it became
less and less
my poem.

that poem was me.

i had put so much of myself
on the paper
everything i dreamed of
yearned for
all of it
everything about myself that makes
me cringe when i see my reflection
all of it
was there
on that paper.

that poem was mine
and i loved it.

Monotone

A foreign bed.

The blankets are
far too heavy, the room
like a surge of
fever.

I counted
forty-seven
revolutions
of the ceiling
fan’s blades,

the curtains dancing
to the melody of the
currents and the discord
of thunder.

The carrion of
four bottles
rotting and the
death rattle of
ennui.

The howling,
piercing silence
as the old hag
dances on my carcass.

Chris Deal writes from Huntersville, NC. He has published a few poems and stories around the way. When he had his debut collection of short fiction, Cienfuegos, was published, he fried up a few plantains. www.Chris-Deal.com

jessicasmith

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