LB Sedlacek
LB Sedlacek has had poetry appear in publications such as "Down in the Cellar," "Poetry Monthly," "Bear Creek Haiku," "The Literary Spot," "Red River Review," "Tales of the Talisman," "Heritage Writer," "Transparent Words," "The Recusant," "Edgar Literary Magazine," and "I-70 Review." Awards include First Place in Poetry, Caldwell Literary Awards - 2008, and Third Place in Poetry, Gin Bender Review Poetry Contest - 2004. LB's latest chapbook is "Red Headed Eskimos."
27 Names
After a summer rain the broken
bottles illuminate, glinting
like paper in a drunk’s mouth,
having breakfast afternoons
at a quarter of four –
shoe parade, rush-hour congregations
and a piece of newspaper flies
over ATM’s – headlines blaring
empty pews and seats. When
it was raining, silence fell
down gray and weepy
under an unread magazine.
The slip of paper with a volume
and date turned back on
a bank robbery, a serial
adventure in outer space
and there’s me in my helmet
taking pictures of nothing
and keeping notes in a brown
plastic notebook. Notes
in pockets, hands on my head
rush-hour evaporated
underneath headlines
pounded out bleached into color
by invisible ink.
Mental Novocain
Geography is certain still
of its place in dictionaries –
encyclopedias bound in cloth, leather
or plastic. Its colors preen in
dull brown, vibrant orange
shiny with sunlight and thumb prints,
greasy with hamburger juice,
oily with hot dog marinades
and lip gloss smiles meant for
no one. There’s time for the
fluorescents to mend the cobwebs
to re-negotiate contracts and hours.
as the white face clock ticks
silently in the corner.
Merging Left
40 heads turned towards the
electronic sky their minds
unglued and stomachs
gurgling with remnants of
sulfur soup. Coils and springs
are easy to melt and turn
into animal balloons, sticks
of dynamite or letters to
home. The words are
made up, the handwriting
illegible, the address to
no one. This game of
chess is just beginning
and you're playing
whether you know
it or not. The Knight
comes out 24\7, 365
days a year for 15
minutes on the half
hour 7days a week,
especially on sundays.
The Patience Test
5 years for the blood to adjust
from one altitude to another
making thin skin a sweater’s
playground or pearl-covered
flesh a fresh-kill scent
wafting into septic tanks
into
where plankton kayaks
and algae scuba dives
into lava junkyards and
coral bathtubs built for
2 till 1 of ’em growls,
“I don’t know what’s wrong”
until the needle pierces
veins, pricks eyelids
swollen shut from the rain.
