FROM THE DAY I WAS BORN
By
Jeffrey Zable
The milk turns to stone while the multitude of faces look the other way.
The cars honking in inebriated hysteria as a dress catches fire
and the once thriving flesh slowly melts to the ground.
And along the way an old man’s teeth fall from his mouth,
and when he steps on them, the crunch is heard around the world.
That Old Black Magic begins to play in my head, a song I once liked
that no one under a hundred and fifty would likely know.
What I do know is that the corner store is giving out samples
of breadcrumbs from the bottom of a burned-out toaster,
and that if I were feeling better I’d make myself get up from this bed
that has been my prison from the day I was born. . .
BEFORE THE END FINALLY COMES
Just when I think it’s safe to go back into the poem,
it comes sailing at me with the biggest teeth I’ve ever seen,
and not only that, but razor sharp, and it’s enough for me
to keep just a few inches ahead of them.
Teeth I feel that I’ve encountered before but somehow forgotten
or blocked out due to fear and anxiety, which has been with me
since I sprung from the womb, a bald-headed rock without a name.
And even though I’ve made it this far, I really don’t have that much
to show for it. Maybe a few pennies and the kiss of a stale piece of bread
that was hiding at the bottom of the refrigerator.
What to do now to make it any better, I have no idea as I’ve tried
just about everything, and after what seems like 278 years
of psychotherapy, drugs, and taps on the brain, what can I say!
There isn’t much I can say except that I hope the end comes quickly,
not like for a lot of people who wind up having their bones and blood
mashed up like they’ve been inside the most cruel of osterizers
before the end finally comes. . .
THE CROSSING
I was on a bridge, thinking there could be a world on the other side,
a world that I could live in.
I walked to the end, but all I found was the beginning of another.
Crossing over was another, another, and another. . .
Finally, I stopped and peered over the edge thinking that maybe
there was another way to go.
On the water below, balancing on his fin, was a sad looking fish.
“Don’t even think of coming down here ‘cause there’s crocodiles
everywhere!”
“Thanks!“ I responded, “but what do you do so they don’t get you?”
“I always keep moving and checking behind me. It’s not much of a life,
but it’s better than the alternative!”
After he dove into the water, I considered heading back from where
I began, but then remembered that I no longer remembered.
I continued on my way, crossing from one bridge to another. . .
Appeared in Misfit, 2019
Jeffrey Zable is a teacher, conga drummer/percussionist who plays Afro-Cuban folkloric music for dance classes and
rumbas around the San Francisco Bay Area and a writer of poetry, flash-fiction, and non-fiction. He's published five chapbooks and his writing has appeared in hundreds of literary magazines and anthologies, more recently in Ranger, New English Review, Beach Chair, The Raven's Perch, Corvus, and many others. . .
By
Jeffrey Zable
The milk turns to stone while the multitude of faces look the other way.
The cars honking in inebriated hysteria as a dress catches fire
and the once thriving flesh slowly melts to the ground.
And along the way an old man’s teeth fall from his mouth,
and when he steps on them, the crunch is heard around the world.
That Old Black Magic begins to play in my head, a song I once liked
that no one under a hundred and fifty would likely know.
What I do know is that the corner store is giving out samples
of breadcrumbs from the bottom of a burned-out toaster,
and that if I were feeling better I’d make myself get up from this bed
that has been my prison from the day I was born. . .
BEFORE THE END FINALLY COMES
Just when I think it’s safe to go back into the poem,
it comes sailing at me with the biggest teeth I’ve ever seen,
and not only that, but razor sharp, and it’s enough for me
to keep just a few inches ahead of them.
Teeth I feel that I’ve encountered before but somehow forgotten
or blocked out due to fear and anxiety, which has been with me
since I sprung from the womb, a bald-headed rock without a name.
And even though I’ve made it this far, I really don’t have that much
to show for it. Maybe a few pennies and the kiss of a stale piece of bread
that was hiding at the bottom of the refrigerator.
What to do now to make it any better, I have no idea as I’ve tried
just about everything, and after what seems like 278 years
of psychotherapy, drugs, and taps on the brain, what can I say!
There isn’t much I can say except that I hope the end comes quickly,
not like for a lot of people who wind up having their bones and blood
mashed up like they’ve been inside the most cruel of osterizers
before the end finally comes. . .
THE CROSSING
I was on a bridge, thinking there could be a world on the other side,
a world that I could live in.
I walked to the end, but all I found was the beginning of another.
Crossing over was another, another, and another. . .
Finally, I stopped and peered over the edge thinking that maybe
there was another way to go.
On the water below, balancing on his fin, was a sad looking fish.
“Don’t even think of coming down here ‘cause there’s crocodiles
everywhere!”
“Thanks!“ I responded, “but what do you do so they don’t get you?”
“I always keep moving and checking behind me. It’s not much of a life,
but it’s better than the alternative!”
After he dove into the water, I considered heading back from where
I began, but then remembered that I no longer remembered.
I continued on my way, crossing from one bridge to another. . .
Appeared in Misfit, 2019
Jeffrey Zable is a teacher, conga drummer/percussionist who plays Afro-Cuban folkloric music for dance classes and
rumbas around the San Francisco Bay Area and a writer of poetry, flash-fiction, and non-fiction. He's published five chapbooks and his writing has appeared in hundreds of literary magazines and anthologies, more recently in Ranger, New English Review, Beach Chair, The Raven's Perch, Corvus, and many others. . .
