Elizabeth Lynch

Elizabeth is poetry and finearts editor at SpokenWar. She can be reached at ealynch@spokenwar.com.

Dawn cracks my skull and the song of the dog leaks in. I’m still here, silent and still, gripped white with distraction, teeth curdling from the yap-yap-yipping trampling through my window, abrading my peace. The phone rings, cracks my skull wide, tells me to hurry up, tells me to listen to the voice of reason, offers a little free advice, and if I don’t take it, it’s gonna cost me. This is about art, after all…and rules. I wonder what the Hell rules we are talking about, so I get up and get out.

Turn the corner, blinded by a wall of dawn, dodging traffic, and QUICK -it’s a last minute decision in four feet of visibility, four feet of insight. There’s a turn here somewhere, but it’s lost to morning. Where’s that goddamn turn? I know it’s here somewhere. I’m gonna be late, even though it’s an hour early. I leave the speed limit behind. Hurry, the phone is ringing.

My ratty old car can’t go the speed of light, but if it could, would I still be blinded by a stained glass windshield and a wall of dawn? I’m late, but it’s an hour early - I know, the time and space of it don’t add up, like a living Doppler effect, and I hear the singsong again, "Someone’s on the phone for you." And I’m thinking, "But there’s a truck on my ass, riding my back bumper, and if I take that call, I’m gonna be roadkill - flattened - dried to stiff, human beef jerky by midday." I’m approaching high pressure system, an overload to low, like leaves in a parking lot chasing an invisible vortex or false gravity.

PAY ATTENTION! The phone is ringing!

So I answer it. It was getting on my nerves.

"Hurry up, take some free advice, listen to the voice of reason - the rationale of wisdom." (I’ve got my foot to the floor, but my face slams into the dashboard anyway.) "Make everything tidy - neat - You’re not thinking clearly. Go to school. Follow the forms. This is about GOOD poetry, it’s gotta be GOOD."

And I’m whining, I’m railing, I’m screaming, even though I can barely be heard over the high of the engine, "But I am, I am thinking clearly, it’s just that I’ve run into a wall of dawn - when I find the goddamn turn, I’ll take it, but I’ve already got a truck on my ass, and right now, I don’t want to be roadkill….WHERE IS THAT GODDAMN TURN?"

So the voice on the phone says oh-so-cheerfully, "Why don’t you come for a visit? We can talk about poetry!"

I dunno - sounds kind of like cruel and unusual to me, so I make some sorry excuse, decline the offer, ‘cause what I really want is to pull off to the side of the road and think for a minute, or go to a big old church with gray fieldstone and wrought iron, get lost in the pipe organ, and pretend that I believe in god, or at least in sanctuary - but there is no stop to the motion, the frenetic grin under tired eyes, people crammed, heads suspended behind the glass of speeding oblivion.

The phone says, "Come for a visit, spend a little time." But my time is already spent, gone, and I’m bouncing checks for moments of inspiration, my account is shut down - credit denied.

I turn, even though there is no road, there is no turn. Damn the consequences. I careen, full speed, over the field, fast as fast can.

"Fuck art," I think, "Just fuck it."

I try to erase my rage and the miles of my compliance, I try to remember who I once was, the outsider, the pariah. I will no longer be the spider under schoolboy’s burning glass, no longer a part of the inquisition of whether or not I can be an upright, up tight, stand-up solid underground citizen. I am no longer an artist or a poet, and I will prove that I am not.

I am no artist. I won’t answer the phone.

I'll take the turn.

Crystal Ball

I bought a crystal ball,

but no one asked me to dance.

I eat my dinner from a petrie dish.

When people look into my camera,

I put them into focus -

and then out.

When I can’t feel my legs,

I can remember how to walk.

I buy plastic shoes at the grocery store,

and my blisters break open.

I watch them drain.

**!**

EA Lynch