Jaydn DeWald

 

 

GRID (11)

 

here in the darkness under the projector’s beam a dust galaxy silently wheeling under the projector’s beam in a chair he wakes silently wheeling on the screen his childhood in a chair he wakes like Odysseus on the screen his childhood to which he’s been lashed like Odysseus forward out of the shadows to which he’s been lashed issues his brother forward out of the shadows suntanned & bleach-blond issues his brother still clutching the six-shooter suntanned & bleach-blond terrified of touch still clutching the six-shooter run from your brother terrified of touch he watches himself turn & run from his brother in Technicolor he watches himself turn & through bullet-gray woods in Technicolor imagines his silhouette through bullet-gray woods encircles him now imagines his silhouette nightfall incarnate encircles him now you won’t hurt anybody nightfall incarnate rattling the chair he won’t hurt anybody as the lashings snap rattling the chair & stands for a moment still as the lashings snap his brother dissolves & stands for a moment still soft-edged on the screen his brother dissolves in the center of his palm on the screen soft-edged a stone of absence in the center of his palm a dust galaxy a stone of absence he must carry smoldering in the darkness here

 

 

 


Jaydn DeWald is the author of Sheets of Sound: Notes on Music & Writing (forthcoming from Broken Sleep Books) and several chapbooks, most recently A Love Supreme: fragments & ephemera, winner of the 2019 Quarterly West Chapbook Contest. His work has appeared in Australian Book Review, Best New Poets, CV2, Popshot Quarterly, and many other publications. He’s Assistant Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at Piedmont College in Demorest, Georgia, USA.


Continue to Isabel Galleymore’s ‘Liminal Landscapes: Pratyusha’s Bulbul Calling Will Burns’ Country Music’ >>

 <<Go back to Agnes Hanying Ong’s ‘The Poor Fisherman Feels More Dignified Dying’

Return to Issue 8