Haibun on John Ashbery's Haibun 6

By Joshua St. Claire

Despite the spines, the chestnuts are so much easier than the black walnuts, but we are who we are. I told him I could watch the glass blowers all day. There is nothing better than seeing a master at work, even when…never mind. Just imagine, after the sixpence and the rye, opening that gigantic pie, and out comes the solar wind. You look inside and you— only you— see the blackness of space and it’s spangled by infinite galaxies in all directions and you— only you— glorious you— self-luminous you— can see it all. Don’t spoil it by telling anyone. They’ll think you’re mad. Just smile and say it’s blackbirds all the way down (and they’ll tell you how handsome you are when you smile. And how tall you are when you dance. And how broad your shoulders are when you laugh.) Of course, here, in the last place you look, you see all creation at once, just as Fulcanelli said, from the perspective of the Prime Mover, and to see that this knowledge is the Magnum Opus, the logos of Fiat Lux. For a moment, it glisters at your lips, but then, suddenly, the Euclidean Plane begins dissolving into nautilus shells and sunflowers and romanesco and you can’t taste the cocaine in the Coca-Cola anymore. Oh, where are the Platonic Solids? Oh, how can I articulate the Pythagorean Triples? Oh, count with me, please, while I still can, the fading digits of pi…

​                                                                                                lighting our cigars with C-notes the Sybil of Cumae

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Avian Abecedary

By Joshua St. Claire

​…Arcadia anhinga Adlestrop adagio Avesta bouncing beer belly bulbul Beulahland ballade of Bohemian bonhomie Cedar Forest cylinder cyclamen cowbird Camelot coloratura Dilmen dolmen dove Disco Delight Elysium eider endless endlessness eider Eden espirando even Eden flickering flicker fallen fallen fallen the fletted flicker is fallen in flickers flickering flitter is fled the flicker is fallen fallen glissando gyrfalcon gyre gutted Gilmore Gibson Girls galore hexed hototogisu Hauptsatz hushed hydrogen helpmeet I I I irradiated ibis iris I-131 incalzando Jack-of-all-trades-and-master-of-jabiru jete just-in-time on the just and unjust kokako klaxon Klangfarbenmelodie kick-‘em-when-they’re-down Karl Lagerfeld latch-key lost-lotus limpkin lilts lightning lies in lies on the lonely lands mimblewimble magpie mutters the Magnificat oh moon oh Mentha oh marvelous mouth mourning morning mayfly may fly my me maybe narcotic necrotic nightjar nictating 1999 No, No, Nanette Nevermind Niebelungenlied nightly #9 Dream oriole oratorio Come Original orange olivas olent and on and on and on plastic particulate pipit pizzicatos P-P-P-Poker Face Potiphar phthalates pockmarking praxis and poiesis quail quine quarter tone razorbill rasping rhapsody rotting ruby slippers spent sparrow serenading Suffragette City strung sutures strain as the soil separates suppurates seeping Symposium stillborn Toxicodendron tanager tremolo vivisection vireo vamping waxwing waning wiwaxia waxing wolno xolmis extinguished yellowhammer yawns zero Zeromus zitherbird zurückhalten zealot z-axis asymptote…

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Joshua St. Claire is an accountant from a small town in Pennsylvania who works as a financial director for a large non-profit. His poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Lana Turner, Sugar House Review, Allium, and Ligeia Magazine, among others. His work has appeared in the Dwarf Stars Anthology and he is the winner of the Gerald Brady Memorial Senryu Award and the Trailblazer Award.