This amazing piece of artwork above was created by Eunnie based on my poem For This. Be sure to check out https://eunnieboo.tumblr.com/ for more great work.
Author Archives: Adam
A Request Through Memory
On Bad Apples
If an orchard
produced this much
rotten fruit
they’d cull the trees
with hatchet and flame
grind the stumps to mulch
till the tailings under
and plant something else
in its place.
— Adam Kamerer
Behind The Scenes
Pennies from Heaven
I find pennies on the asphalt
and on the hardest days,
now and then, a dime
and once when the world
was falling on itself
the bright disc
of a silver half-dollar.
Every time, I drop the coins
into the palm of your hand
and you drop the coins
into a jar of blue glass
and pay me for my scavenging
with the whisper of a smile.
I have come to require
this secret pleasure so often
my eyes are always at the ground.
Beneath the Kudzu
After sixteen episodes
of true crime documentaries,
turn off the television
and then stretch your legs
and go for a walk in the woods.
Stride beside fallen timbers,
beside fern and poison sumac,
skirt the ridgeline
of a gully and a pause:
kudzu spills into a bowl
scooped from the earth.
Feel the shadows tug
your eye to the green hole.
Feel the shadows tug
your foot to the brink.
Teeter and catch yourself
peering for bodies and bone
beneath the kudzu.
Do not hurry past.
The kudzu wants you
to peer beneath it
and even if you do not
find the murdered bones
of a missing life,
you may find the home
of a coal skink
or a kingsnake
or you may find nothing
but your held breath
but your blood in your ears
but yourself
imagining your body
laid down beneath the kudzu.
Moats
The rain coming down
has filled up the ditch
at the edge of the yard.
A little more and it will
swallow up the driveway
and separate us
from the world
by a little gulf
of brown rain water.
As a child I used to dig
moats around the castles
I built out of pinecones
and tin cans and pour
pailfuls of water into them.
They never held water:
drought thirsty Alabama dirt
sucked every drop down
and just left muddy damp divots
and I’m pretty sure the ditch
at the edge of the yard
will dry up just the same
but for the moment
I am alone with you
pretending this old house
is a castle overgrown with moss
and the drawbridge is up
so no one can disturb us.
Floodgates
I had to teach myself
the shapes of strange floodgates:
the open door that leads
to pine trees and crows,
away from the sound of humans,
and back to the sound of squirrels.
The sizzle and crack
of skillet and fat,
the simple pleasure
of a egg being fried
and laid on toast.
A golden gush of yolk.
The hot flush and rush
of a shower head
pouring buckets onto
skin I haven’t wanted
to wash in days,
of sore gums shocked to mint.
These are floodgates
to trickle down the reservoirs
before the levees crack
and all the gallons and gallons
of me smash out and scour
everything I’ve built away.
Asleep Through Storms
This morning starts with downpour.
No gentle bloom of sun beam
through the bedroom window,
no chirrup and warble of bird song.
This morning starts with flash
and thunder, with crash and clamor,
with the great old pine in the yard
groaning in the wind,
but you sleep through it
and I do not.
The room is dark
and the rain drives down
and the shape of your body
twisted in the sheets
is a stillness the world
forgot to keep this morning.
I want you to know this
is how I think of you often:
a moment of rest in deluge,
a moment of peace in cloudburst,
a quiet in the shouting gale.
Today, I Am Godzilla
Today, I am Godzilla.
I step: the earth shakes.
Coffee shop customers steady
their mugs. Somewhere,
a small Japanese woman
shrieks in terror and flees,
arms flailing, for shelter.
Today, I am Godzilla,
hunting for a 52L sports coat,
blocked in the city street
that is the men’s wear
section of J.C. Penny’s
by a battalion of 48R’s.
I dash them aside,
lumber off, half-defeated
and half-conquering.
Today, I am Godzilla,
backtracking in the stacks
of the Hoover Public Library
because there is a young woman
browsing mystery novels in my way
and that aisle is too damn narrow
for the both of us.
Today, I am Godzilla,
writing poetry and thinking
of what to eat tonight.
World Cup
The World Cup is close
and someone asked me to
write a poem about soccer.
This is as close to the game
as I’ve ever come:
A girl kissed me in the center circle
of the campus soccer field,
thirteen minutes after midnight,
under a rainy summer sky
in my sophomore year,
and for the minutes
and seconds of that kiss
the world became a rush and a roar
as if there were
ten thousand flashbulbs
alive in my veins
and my heart couldn’t beat any faster
even if she’d asked it to.
And then,
and then….
she walked away
to let someone else hold her
and I learned what every
player on the field learns:
the World Cup is yours
and then it is not.
This poem was originally published under the pen name Gabriel Gadfly.