$\"Out$

Out Through the In – Brodsky<\/p><\/div>\n

Exploits<\/strong><\/p>\n

These are the exploits reduced to line & shade\u2014
\npigment prisons, alabaster integers,
\nthe sentence of a criminal race.
\nNothing on this wall can be sold or bought.
\nSome show wounds in red, white, & blue,
\nmetapaintings history has loaned its name to,
\nhips & lips that challenge saintliness & sanity
\nwith their knees that do not touch
\n& their breasts like bishops on a chess board.<\/p>\n

There\u2019ve been periods of flesh & bone
\nin which the breast unsheathed its sword
\nin acts of broken love & conscription,
\ntimes privates sold like nobody\u2019s business,
\nmoments when male beauty was etched in stone
\n& stood there like statues for gods to envy,
\ndemagogues to drool.<\/p>\n

There will be embarrassment,
\nbars & windows to contend with,
\nchoices made as fig leaves for perfect storms.
\nOil & stone may mark the limits of our lives.
\nClay may show the flesh its path from mud.
\nBut when the bomb becomes a dud,
\nprotest to the wall be nailed
\n& there is left the rites of execution,
\nunbearable as false proportion
\nmakes us lumber thick as thieves.<\/p>\n

There, as curves fill up\/flatten out,
\nas personality turns off & is called \u201cGod,\u201d
\nthere as heart, beat by age,
\nhumiliated by emotion,
\nthere, as arms go weak & legs misstep\u2014
\nwhere once we fell up in love,
\nnow we fail & fall to earth\u2026
\nwhen heads forget where their bodies were\u2014
\nthere, we remain intact.
\nThese walls hold words we write
\nto worlds that will not write to us.
\nIt\u2019s time to fight the fiends
\nwho would be friends with color & with light.
\nIt\u2019s time the gloves come off.
\nIt\u2019s time the elbows in it are what we\u2019re up to.
\nIt\u2019s time to be here now.<\/p>\n

~ Adam Brodsky<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Chagall\u2019s Cat<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is easier to hear food than it is to eat music
\nthrough the window of Chagall\u2019s cat
\nAs I walk on a February afternoon
\nI dream as big as Adam\u2019s eyes
\nand words weigh on my back
\nlike suras I can\u2019t altogether remember.<\/p>\n

Youth is an open umbrella in the hoof of a goat
\nand adornment was born in the colors
\nof Mughal loving laid out on brocade<\/p>\n

As night comes, stars pop out from
\ngames of hide and seek
\nand one last time
\nthe cat arches her back
\nbefore going away.<\/p>\n

~ Heather Ann Schmidt<\/p>\n

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