Back to Issue 6

Sara Marron

Lily the Muse

Waiting for her, paper in front of you, prepared for the sudden appearances randomly when before there might have been substances, jobs, fluids, 

objects flung around like comet tail dust distracting from the muse’s presence. Now you may see her pink and beautiful like a swaddled baby 

skinned of embryonic safety, freezing outside a storefront selling wind energy, “look at it go!” Swirling leaves and plastic grocery bags create 

cyclonic crop circles on pavement in front of apathetic pedestrians taxiing cellular tracking devices from Starbucks to Starbucks project muse the 

portal is prepared for you, if you prepare for her and pay your entry fee, there is nothing free nothing measureless without a number for the endless 

clime of Clytie’s lover in the arching skyways, you rooted in the decaying earth you soiled, is your poison, and your Muse. Son, terrible lot to plant 

the factory lines in, architect dreams of cumulous coils ever expanding up and up and up like the ticker on 14th street, Union Square counting all 

America’s debt. Gold evaporated and no one noticed but fit into character and these one-hundred and forty spaces, something to measure by.

Selections from the Long Tu'm 
      From the Letters, Mystery

X. On Dying--
    Rhydian wrote as
    Bukoski for thirty
    years from England
    in gin bathtubs smoked
    like a salmon in Marlboro’s
    and pressed Oxfords
    holding their shape through
    moons rising and rising
    and wiped away in
    vacancy--
    Below the Alps in
    a goat town where its
    cold and there’s no
    music, your old hometowns
    so far away and
    inside your head there's
    a record playing
    Bukowski would buy
    Thompson and Waits
    their last whiskey for
    the train, to the
    mountain pass where
    we fly by and hold on
    to damn the bottom
    of the tumbler, a hard
    little pistol strapped
    to the mule, morning
    cresting snow crystal
    capped monstrosities
    those mountains tumble
    on us like grave stones
    our names written on their
    faces, reflections laughing
    like jokers in the landslide,
    tell the Good Lord I’m
    behind the plow, dust on
    the trail weaving the new
    text with nail for a pen.
    Dear Mr. Goodman Brown,
    that walk in the woods took
    longer than expected--
    rampaging sons of winter    
    roll over brazen broken
    fields and I’ve lost the
    way. Dawn breaks again
    and again and dusk
    punctures the power lines
    bleeding rusty wine red
    sky orange and yellow-pink
    blushing heat that
    must only be emanating
    from the only house
    we can see from the valley--
    Dear Travellers, “come on up”    
    “the house” “is home” “the world”
    “is not home” “the light”
    “is your iron” “in the fire” and
    like the dream that
    whittles down every desire

    inside you, you succumb to
    the vision that is
    is not real. Is the
    is not the world
    is the world my
    is not the world

    my home. “Come on”
    “up” “to the house”.

    Sincerely,

    Tom Waits

Selections from the Long Tu'm
     From the Lascivia Mysteries

I.    Little drop of
      poison thrilling
      kills me kisses
      I want you to
      kiss me like
      the stranger
      you were, once
      again. Drops
      of devil dances
      bachata back
      rooms hookah
      sweet breath
      bosom sweat
      tastes sweet like
      lizard licks last
      drops of liquid
      off dry desert
      bones--oh baby!
      so so wet you
      soak me through
      and I will
      be satisfied,
      I will breathe
      satisfaction, sing
      satisfaction, stay
      satisfaction, sigh
      satisfaction. Let
      the bullet go
      back to the
      straight and
      barrel slide
      into the narrow
      and you’re gone
      snapped back
      head cracked
      arched back
      spine fine so
      curved courteous
      bent over
      barroom blossom
      baring all backside
      smooth for my
      fingers my tips
      my touch
      my touching
      my finger tips
      touching tips
      of lips,
      panting for
      parting.

Sara earned her Bachelors in English this year from St. John’s University, and is a Masters Candidate for 2016. Her work has appeared in Digital Papercut, Dark Matter, and Sequoya. Currently she is working on several poetry collections in the midst of working full-time in New York City for Green Mountain Energy, a renewable energy company. She has aspirations to write a novel, and will continue writing poems.

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