"Ruby, My
Dear"*
by Matthew Germenis
My mistress's
eyes are nothing
like Monk and
Trane -
erratically
living in Carnegie Hall.
They are
elderly canaries,
plainly set
apart by a plain nose
underneath a
plain dome;
front lips
disappearing on a horizon
of unpolished
chrome.
Rusty bolts in
the corners of her mouth
squeak, rattle,
even clang a little
when she speaks
in scratches
through glass
teeth jagged brittle
cracked
minutely and bent as matches
used for fires
and light of the past -
now just
archaic symbols
of the music of
voices,
the jazz of
eyes,
that never seem
to last.
A City Kind of Pain
(How to Feel Blue)*
by Matthew Germenis
I smelled the
ocean where there was none,
lifted dew
beads from Jew beards
& was axed
to pieces by an Ethiopian sax player
stranded on the
corner of an abandoned amusement park.
They tried to
tell me of their pain in cracked-glass English
& how it
was the same as mine,
Taller than boy
soldiers from their homeland,
Superman of
Supermen, midnight in strength.
No, I’m not
from Sierra Leone
the dirt wars,
stick wars of Bed-Stuy
are nothing
like the sun of a civil war.
& the
chicken-heads w/ swollen veins
on 19th century
stoops,
are deformed
Palestinian women,
& the
shopkeeper on Prophets Street
caught in the
diameter of the bomb.
These are just
chicken-heads on the stoop,
veins dripping,
dripping.
Gentrification
is coming! The boy soldiers are coming!
I smelled the
ocean again,
saw the white
gulls perch on top of a pier
As
“Acknowledgment” was played.
They taught me
how to feel blue,
but it was too
late.
I already knew.
They already knew.
& so we
cried together,
not knowing
why.
Heartbreak*
by Matthew Germenis
The ideal way
for me to deal with it is to clam up and become an oyster in the bottom of the
ocean and make pearls for the rest of my life and give them to no one because
they belong only to me, I made them with my salt and sand, and I alone will see
them glisten in the saliva sunlight of memory, you cannot have it, I refuse to
give it to you, did you make it? Did you spend eternity on the ocean floor with
the darkness of day? Did you have any other God besides the under-belly of
sharks? Did you bathe with the monks in the reefs? No. This pearl is mine
alone, and the only way for you to have it is to shuck me.
Reprinted with permission.
About Matthew Germenis: An English major at the University
of Southern Mississippi, Matthew Germenis was born and bred in Queens, New
York. He enjoys the works of Malamud, Baldwin, Scorsese, Bergman, Kubrick, Paul
Simon, Dylan, Mozart and Miles.
Follow Matthew at http://germenis.tumblr.com/
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