No news today - Guest Post - Jeff Simpson

NO NEWS TODAY

I read all about it and still felt the same
whateverness of a Sunday in Nebraska,
corn cobbed in my teeth, fields waving like a blaze.
Sit by the pool and still I feel capped
with an empty head, watching the bottom
marble like a good steak, the sun singing hosannas
through a backyard sprinkler.
Whatever rainbow. Whatever light waves.
The day unspools, and I want for a cherry
cola to ease me back into submission.
The Paper says Exploding wellheads
and oceans of goo. Paper says Lover immolates
himself in the shape of a valentine,
Dachshund rescued from sewer.
In the early days of refrigeration, ice ruled
the economy—acres of men sawing blocks
from frozen lakes. I wish it could be as simple
as a wood box and tongs, a mini glacier
keeping the meat cool. I wish rickshaws
and happy peasants soldering gadgets.
I wish the edifice not to crumble.
The flight attendant asks if I want ice
with my drink. I say I used to feel safe in the air.
I use to feel something like bliss watching
the city fall from the window, the houses
like specks on a robin’s egg, streets running
arterially from their respective hearts.
Whatever gridlock. Whatever stasis.
I forget combustion and debris fields.
I forget sparrows destroy the eggs of other nests.
I know water evaporates before falling
as rain. I know the sun will burn out
and collapse into a diamond.
I know and forget and feel the surprise
as a piñata stuffed with machetes.
If I can’t escape the coffin while handcuffed,
if I can’t twist out of the shark’s mouth,
if I can’t land softly and catch a little shuteye,
then I want the rubble like I secretly want
the beach oil-soaked and ruined. In its wasting
I can finally see it for what it really is.

Jeff Simpson grew up in southwest Oklahoma and now lives in New York. He is the author of Vertical Hold (Steel Toe Books, 2011), which was a finalist for The National Poetry Series. He is the founding editor of The Fiddleback. His poems have recently appeared in Prairie Schooner, Cimarron Review, Blip Magazine, and others. Visit him at jeffsimpson.org