Word Choice features original works of fiction and poetry. Read three poems by Joshua Marie Wilkinson, with art by Adam Simon, selected by Daniel Moysaenko.

 

Adam Simon, Frisbee Stroll, acrylic on mylar, 9×8.2. Image courtesy of Adam Simon and Pierogi Flat Files.

 

A Song Called Theodicy

   after Cyrus Console

 

Why violence likes to get

unconcealed occasionally,

nightlong, & break some vessels.

You mean, the long drawn‐out

second take of the tunnel scene?

Or the scene where a child’s

encounter on the film set

gets everybody behind

the camera to crying?

That’s not the wound

we thought long for—

Nor even the one we knew

we might have to defend.

The coils of the springs

of the theodicy of being.

Because evil’s a bad measure

of what’s happened here

& even violence can sound

pretty easy in the right mouth.

 

 

 

A Song Called Curtains

 

Now, stripling, where’d you learn

to loll a cold satellite

down to the night beach like a kite?

Sew the curtains

into a semblance of shade.

Stammer through the winter/spring ruin

with a bad song in your ear

clocking you like a punisher.

I don’t want to worry

the crawlspace into

an infinite fire.

 

 

 

A Song Called Aperture

 

The road started its druggy pull

& I wanted it to work me.

Then what did I think could be meant

By the phrase what fucking rids us of—

That it could be some?

That it would?

That it’s a reprieve?

That we could fathom the starlight

& know what to do with our selves under it,

eating tangerines with our Maker’s?

That’s not the rhythm’s aperture—

Nor the stroke of the wrong key

In the lock, it’s not the pathway

To freedom or even longing.

What I’m on about isn’t accessibility

In those terms, it’s that a poem’s

Spun from an inherited hex, a visitant

To muddle the words out through you.

 

 

Joshua Marie Wilkinson’s recent and forthcoming books are Selenography (Sidebrow 2010), Swamp Isthmus (Black Ocean 2013), and The Courier’s Archive & Hymnal (Sidebrow 2014). Born and raised in Seattle, he lives in Tucson, where he teaches at the University of Arizona and works as an editor for Letter Machine Editions and the poetry/poetics site The Volta. You can read BOMBlog’s two‐part conversation with him here and here.

 

Adam Simon is a painter living and working in Brooklyn. He recently had a solo exhibition at Studio 10 in Bushwick. He is also known for various public projects, including the Fine Art Adoption Network. For more by Adam Simon, visit his page at Pierogi Flat Files.