ars erotica/from wind sock etiquette/unfinished things - zach fishel

Ars Erotica

Your skin
is a favorite

dresses
shadowed hem

pulling the hair
of stair

climbing angels
amiss of angles.

It’s not the motion
but stillness of

a chewed lip,
the spit

caught between
the recess

of breath,
drowning

in another’s
bitten pause.




FROM WIND SOCK ETIQUETTE ( 3 sonnets)

(I).

I sleep in seashells to hear
the     ocean.          Forget it
     or otherwise, on
either side of the shore.
Doubled speak
spoke in doubled up sureness.
The lapping either way
        erupted
                        divine.
Teleprompters tell us
what to watch. The news is not new,
nor     ever    will it be seen
in this optional
apocalypse.

(II).

Nooses are not solitary,
as a rope is wound of three chords.
Chords of sheet music spray
the studio floor. Talking suspensions
with magicians is illusionary.  Scatter the scrabble
board            and count the waves.
        Light pollution can corrode an en
tire car in several
short years. Too much repetition
zips through a  streak of cobwebs
woven in triangular (dis)repaired intentions.
Hug nothing in a mirror,
since someone
else will already be doing it best.

(III).

                Stretch marks
of etched great black
pack rats reach the straps slung
to the bed
              posts of eternity. A shotgun
in the mouth of an addled
whore isn’t much different
than an empty tomb filled with
        the privy of a hip
against a hip,
as married folks fuck for money.
                She is asleep with the wasps
in the smoke.




Unfinished Things

(For Jordan Herzog)

Impossible home
sickness clings
to shoelaces stumbling
down the bus steps
in mid-April as
a kite dives and
suddenly you’re
given control.

Park fountains and
watermelon stands
are the taste of
wet grass and batting cages
next to the hotdog
vendors and hula-hoops
running away
from children
hunting jobs
and doormats,
fleeting as the stardust
welcoming us home.

Diluted apathy is a
cheap wine in
the cornfields
we’d sneak
off to in another life
neither of us are brave
enough to live.
The jug in the dirt
with letters never written,
just waiting for the
constant abuse of
June bugs humming under
The porch lights
In a rough whisper
of drifting light.


Zach Fishel is the owner/operator of Horehound Press, specializing in
limited edition chapbooks and broadsides. His poetry can be found in
numerous journals and has twice been nominated for the Pushcart. His
first chapbook can be found via NightBallet Press or you can feel free
to contact him directly for anything word related at
zachary.fishel@gmail.com

salt of the earth/wanting - zach fishel

Salt of the Earth

When we were children we

ran through our

garden with a can

of Mortimer’s picking 

the snow peas,

sucking them out of their pods

and lifting

the hairy leaves

of Blue Kentucky green beans.

Father canned those,

they had the highest yield of

all our crops.

The salt,

was for slugs and that was how

we learned

to watch the world burn you,

jellied

on our bare toes.

Wanting

Endlessly languid 

discussions

on life

reveal the tiniest 

bits.

We want symphonies,

architecture,

and children on tire

swings in

the front yard,

but

an empty 

coffin

makes so much noise

compared to

what we can handle.


Zach Fishel is a pushcart Nominee and is a graduate student at the university of toledo. His work is all over, but he hopes for people to find it when they need it most. He plays several instruments and wants everyone to be alive.