Joel E. Chase: Poem
RESERVOIR
in the flame
think about
water father
said
cause I'm tormented
think
about water
dip your finger
all the way
from here
pouring
come and
when the shore weeds
were so
dry
poor man Lazarus
so dry they
crackled
and the driftwood
sick and disabled
lay scattered and whiter
than holiness
come and cool my tongue
think about the
town that's still
down under
had to eat crumbs
pouring out
faucet in
New York City
from the rich man's table
still down
under there attics
weathervanes sidewalks
lawns windows porches
doors beds dolls
and crumbs
dip your finger in the water
scattered and
whiter than holiness
poor man Lazarus
that fisherman squatted
leaned low level with
the water's dead
glare his dead eye cast
the same place each
time must have been right
on the eye of each trout
he yanked up
and out his eye on a
line with each of those
eyes one after
another fish flashing
out and toward him
cause I'm tormented in the flame
caught fish won't
spy or glide caught
fish won't flop
come and cool
spy or
glide into
living rooms
flop out
into somebody's glass
sick and
before anybody
died there was
no such thing
and disabled
caught
fish won't
love to shout
no such
thing and nothing
could hide too
long too deep
I love
but after was when
what was deep turned
bottom up
love to shout I love to
turned bottom
up became
the sky-wide octopus
love to sing I love
sky-wide
octopus that
drips
love to
drips
its
I love to praise
drips its blue
all blue its
all
to praise my heavenly
its
blue its blue
all
my heavenly
its blue
blue
all
Joel Chase's poems have appeared in The Seneca Review, The Connecticut Poetry Review, Lost and Found Times,
Tomorrow, No Exit, Pembroke Magazine, Crazy Horse, Recursive Angel, Highbeams, Switched-on-Gutenberg, Pif,
The Morpo Review, Snakeskin, The Experioddicist, and Big Bridge among others. His latest collection is Uncertain
Relations.
