Robert Beveridge

Depot

the order

filled

the rival

shut

the anemones

off

to make

the delivery

Did You Change the Tape?

A single lemon seed on the path

the touch of skin to tree bark

a candle that can never be extinguished

barrels stacked just before the clearing

incarnate anthracite

stripmined world anthracite nailed to colossal incarnate has come to die for sins of coke and lime but when all is said and done it's the top of the pile that burns every night lesser beings of the stripmined world see just flickers of green love

My Brush with the Lady of Fatima

Or, How an Angel Visited My Bedside in the Divine Form of Miss Gillian Anderson, Patron Saint of The X-Files, and Lifted the Scales from My Eyes

It never ceases to amaze

me what joy's trigger words are.

For my friend Cate, it is “clod”

that will send her areel

into the regions of euphoria, at times

for days on end. Mine changes,

sometimes, but has always been

the name of a horse—Karma Blue,

Cigar, for a brief time FJR's

Winner, who took on Skip Away

in the Ohio Derby and faded

to finish seventh at 53-1.

I had a dream this afternoon

that Lady Fatima, cloaked in all the glory

of an FBI Medical Examiner, came to me

bearing the gift of a pepperoni pizza

and cigarettes. (This is a true

story.) She alternates bites

of pepperoni dipped in cold ranch

salad dressing, and exhales

of smoky blue through perfect,

pouty lips. I tried my best

not to stare nor to question,

since the ways of Lady Fatima

cannot be known to mortal men.

So when she jumped up and exclaimed,

“Shit! The ice cream man was here

and I didn't even think to buy pop rocks!”

in a kind of southwestern drawl, I just nodded.

(At this point, some young wag in the back

of the room pipes up. “Didn't Mikey die

from eating pop rocks and drinking soda?”

He is shushed by other members of the audience,

used to this kind of outburst. But to continue:)

It was then I felt

the unassailable stream of jo

wash over me like the twin

rays of water and blood

from the heart of Christ. I searched

my mind, could not discover

a horse named Pop Rocks:

an inexcusable omission, I think,

from the Jockey Club's records

but one that can be rectified

at a future birth. Until then I

will just say “pop rocks” to myself

and feel that tingle, like the carbonated

explosion under the tongue,

all over my body.

Round

taken enough to stand

against the rockfish

barrier

but the way it clips through

like a shell

rats downtown

against the chill

go on, have a glass

Trust of Broken Promises

Drops of lemon juice coruscate

on the ground between your knees.

Stare into the pool. Your arm

is wet—with blood? Perhaps

with citrus. You could never tell

the difference, but you like

the sharp, metallic taste. Raise

your fingers to your lips

as if in communion.

The result is the same.

Void of the Block

strike it—no

strike

strike

the sky slips away

to find a happier

planet to gift

with its atmosphere

count us

count

count us

leave your fingernail

clippings and datura

leaves on the table,

the busboy will gather

them after close

we are more asleep

than we are present

and we cannot help

but be the world champions

at walking away

Robert Beveridge (he/him) makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry on unceded Mingo land (Akron, OH). He published his first poem in a non-vanity/non-school publication in November 1988, and it's been all downhill since. Recent/upcoming appearances in The Loch Raven Review, Moirai, and The Short of It, among others.