City Resident: Winner of the 2015 AWP Intro Journals Project for Poetry, selected by Philip Metres
- City ResidentWinner of the 2015 AWP Intro Journals Project for Poetry, selected by Philip Metres
Today I am sufficiently angry.On the translated streets dogs and a storyof a prostitute in a plastic bag,a woman in the body of a prostitute,dogs in the bodies of abandoned dogs.
Somewhere a tribunal of non-humanspersists in a project of conscience,we should warn them—a piece of light warms the shellof a dying tortoise in the desert
of a dying state, sufficiently combinedwith nothing in the worldwe can dream, we can wantto be gone. The science booksloitering behind my eyes
are a pain, but the toddlerof the universe wants to existand why not? Why not fashion ropefrom creekside vegetation, featherthe skins of rivers with steel wings?
Why not drink this fabulous waterfrom the interior? We are inventinga mouth to void the sea of its salt,we’ll have its illustrious backwashto covet and bring into our veins.
Somewhere Jack did this to me,but it’s not San Francisco, it’s not—it’s not the oral confection he leaks [End Page 182]
from his beautiful sides, it’s not.What is it oh future tribunal.
Glaciers remain the effectivesunscreen this earth needsand desires for the riot of tightclothing and battery-powered soundshows Saturday nights in the towns
I have to believe in. Why not believethe pond is also stocked with monstersforming in the deep? Why not seein the eyes of abandoned machinesthe beautiful kite of former souls
waiting for that perfect wave of wind? [End Page 183]
Simon Neely resides on the central coast of California, where he was educated in its ecopoetic tradition. He received a writing degree from St. Mary’s College and has been at work on poetic investigations of gray whales, mountain goats, and the lakes of central Idaho.
