Have a nice weekend

We are already ghosts.

Scrimshaw

At Night
Matthew Shindell

Though I wouldn’t tell her
I see tattooed ships
across her breasts,

hanging
from the main,
a sailor appears in her sleep
and hands me scrimshaw
wrapped in butcher’s paper.
Until morning we arrange
shells into sentences
that I send away
as ransom notes.

Three Candles Press: In Another Castle by Matthew Shindell

A woolly beast hung sheets and towels on the line in the morning and asked how he slept.
—Matthew Shindell, from JESUS AND THE 12 OPOSSUMS

In Another Castle by Matthew Shindell

What stands out about In Another Castle is the creativity and extravagant heart of Matthew Shindell— his poetry is imbued with the sensibility described by Rebecca Loudon as “deep play“–  absurdity/playfulness with a solid, thoughtful, often stunning, emotional core.  In the poem INC a character is trying to make a sale: Business is booming. It’s booming business./You bring me a nickel and I give you/either a flower or a mushroom. Lucy/took the flower. All that night she dreamt/of people smiling . Now you, you look/like the kind of guy who could use/something special. I have a pumpkin out back/that might be just your size. Seriously/what can I do to get you leaving here today/with this pumpkin? This whimsical sales patter continues to its clincher– Because I know/it is sad when the light of one thing falls/in the space of another. The streetlights/hung in the early fog like something/beautiful strung up for amusement:/some beautiful novelty. It is sad./The lamp obliterates the empty desk. Achingly lovely, yet completely in keeping with the rest of the poem.