ANDREW GIBSON AND ZEBULON HUSET / 5 POEMS FROM THE EXQUISITE CENTO PROJECT
[2019] Poem 4: Only lines from Arthur Rimbaud, Basho & Script for Star Wars A New Hope
Among new shoots of bamboo
the two robots trudge off toward a grimy homestead entry
surrounded by tender woods of hazel trees
crossing long fields
with a cord to his face
where the rugged desert mesas meet:
Shoot down the plagues, beginning with time.
They will soon be back and in greater numbers.
The rivers let me go where I wanted
to view the moon—
they sway but do not drop.
I have the death sentence in twelve systems
without persimmon trees.
By the old temple
I got a little cooked, but I'm okay.
Still not a butterfly,
they follow her, moving swiftly down the deserted corridor.
Riddle with disaster,
shaking the grave
while the cricket brags.
The far moon in a continuing dream
all with white hair and canes.
[2019] Poem 6: Only lines from Franz Wright, James Wright and Script for Robocop
In an exchange of gunfire just before dawn
Her eyes are very clear
We found ourselves wandering through Italy, homesick for penguins
with gratitude and terror.
And I am with you
checking doorways and windows and rooftops
for a room to rent
the law doesn’t go on strike
These cops work together every night
To rake and shovel all his dust away
It was a blue spider.
In a silo shadow
I’m sure it’s only a glitch… a temporary setback
you saw another world
across the black highway and fields like billions of white bees
Think of a bird
with the same aggressive attitude.
Do you hear me
smashing his dentures?
They think that they can scare me.
One summer dog-day after another
while we’re just standing around worrying about what might happen
I looked behind me where my wings were gone
We didn’t ask to be born
I say good business is where you find it!
Aim for his head
[2019] Poem 7: Only lines from Sara Teasdale, Dr. Seuss and Script for The Shining
Lifes a great balancing act—
Do you really want to go and live in that hotel for the winter?
The sunless world was white and grey.
Little things linger—
blue waves whitened on a cliff
This whole place is such an enormous maze
Dawn turned on her purple pillow
he’ll tell you perhaps… if you’re willing to pay
Yes! You will, indeed!
unless I learn to ask, no help
It’s something brand new
from my hopes that turned to sand
you know what you know.
Wendy, carrying knife, runs forward
Give all you have been or could be.
don’t worry. Don’t stew.
Music like a curve of gold.
You can’t get away. I’m right behind you
It’s his mother
he swings axe back
You have brains in your head
and the faded fresco’s faintness
—a solitary planet shine.
If there is any way to baffle death—
Good evening. Forest Service.
A person’s a person, no matter how small
But she didn't do it. And now it’s too late.
[2019] Poem 8: Only lines from Ranier Maria Rilke, Wisława Szymborska and original songs by Alvin and the Chipmunks (and/or the Chipettes)
She sat, like all the rest of us, at tea.
Out of every hundred people
just gulp me
I’m ready to believe it.
Lie in the lap of alien stones
a waving, glittering sea
The light fell from outside, as on a pool
on loan to me by fate.
And when to vanish—
History counts its skeletons in round numbers.
The story is he was on the passenger list—
through all the bottomless, bloated heavens
Fitfully wander, when the wild leaves loosen
masked by the shadows of night
from a coil of wondrous hair
I’m effective at home—
let me have your abyss
amidst unknown neighbors
forty and four
like rain-crazed toads
Silver lining:
The photograph halted them in life—
led to error
as wave follows wave
the earth’s wardrobe
flapping its terrified wings
and then they were entangled in my hair
—the blood well hidden.
Summer Poem 5: Only lines from Joy Harjo, Amy Lowell, & the Script for Army of Darkness
I know now that there is such thing as a living Evil.
With sacred wings
Sin was invented by the Christians, as was the Devil. We sang
upon a broken world
“He bleeds!” As a man bleeds.
A tiny figure among the gravestones
we are still America,
but we all heard his voice crack
I lie back and laugh, and let the green-white water, the sun-flawed beryl water, flow over me.
The giant blades of the mill arc down into frame
Blue exhaust billows up from the pit—
These memories were left here with the trees.
I am already familiar with the weapons.
They chased deer out of your womb
pulling the door closed behind him
A thin red gash.
I am parched now, and my tongue is horrible in my mouth
Like the water-drops which slowly wear the rocks to powder
Why do you subdue yourself in golds and purples?
An imperfect map will have to do, little one:
An echoed wailing rises up.
With only two levers to steer the craft. It's a bumpy ride
to sky, to earth, to sun, to moon—to one whole voice that is you.
sharp, invisible zigzags,
pale, with the blue of high zeniths, shimmered over with silver, brocaded
when a shovelful of dirt is heaped atop it.
Why do you dim yourself with folded silks?
Black birds fly from a barren tree.
A shy wind threading leaves after a massacre—
blown backwards into a double backflip
a dark and shapeless thing that lives not in the spaces we know, but between them…
There is no escape.
Andrew Gibson is an educator from North Carolina. He studied creative writing at North Carolina Central University.
Zebulon Huset is a teacher, writer and photographer living in San Diego. His writing has recently appeared in Meridian, The Southern Review, Louisville Review, Fence, Rosebud, Atlanta Review, Texas Review and Fjords Review among others. He publishes the writing blog Notebooking Daily, edits at Coastal Shelf, and recommends literary magazines at The Submission Wizard.