Stratification

Meghan Punschke

BlazeVOX [books]
Buffalo, New York

Stratification by Meghan Punschke Copyright 2008 Published by BlazeVOX [books] All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews. Printed in the United States of America Book design by Geoffrey Gatza Cover Design by Meghan Punschke First Edition ISBN: 1-934289-84-1 ISBN 13: 978-1-934289-84-6 Library of Congress Control Number : 2007938745

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Prologue
for Bob Thurman

Adams rib was a parting gift, thus man is my muse, The most practical purpose a woman could choose. A more succulent fruit could not have been eaten, As inspiration sprung from that apple in Eden. It was an incentive from Gaea to the Mother of Men, For which we bear the myth of original sin. But let us examine the breadth of such fodder The context of perception becomes much harder To pin down when the pieces are slightly rearranged Into a familiar notion, completely estranged From a logical purpose or its original intent, So apple juice turns to wine as it starts to ferment And even Dionysus, who has been twice born, Knows the fault in misconceiving a relative form Words and wine are the same, in that they both have a way Of exposing furtive acts that have been tucked away. And, a skeleton in the closet is a most natural thing, But a solitary femur is completely frightening! And so, Persona becomes a very important aspect As it masks the underlying bond that truly affects The photons and particles bouncing in between Ones eyeballs and the matter of his viewed reality. Alas, a simple need to mince quantum physics Is just a crude procedure to prove that One exists. This private trepidation courses through toxic blood The id spreading diffidence thicker than mud. Until no one is the wiser in a steady chaos, Where an external fit of power is the coup de grace That strangles good intentions and bolsters control Over others It perpetuates the Individual.

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Of course, it is more difficult to relinquish the concrete, Than to succumb to this relatively common defeat. Every echelon suffers in one main convergence: That there is a need to share these intrinsic burdens. But the roots of relation, though they seem steadfast Often harbor karmic motives, at work from the past.

The Virgin Queen had a Lord, whom she kept close at hand. But he was a mere trifle A diversion she had planned. The sovereigns sentiment was destined as stone, She chose England as her husband, and empowered the throne. For she thought it mattered not her commitment to a man, Because every living thing dies alone in the end. Still, the latter was distinct as her intended intellect Was subversive in the way that it began to redirect The social strata we create with a lack of forward thought To the results of such demands that we have daily sought What if everything possessed this unique ability To rationalize and change whims or sensibilities? Choice then, is a prize that we brandish carelessly, As if mental evolution happened haphazardly. And rather than admit that we are infinitely bound, We plod on in separation on what we deem solid ground. On occasion, however, there comes a tiny spark Of understanding from an item that was buried in the dark. Thus, a muse is a mirror through which we see gold. A brilliant trinket, from which we steal a soul Until it is no more than the null crust of a man An Hitchcockian outline, which can no longer stand On its own, or in the bowels of the disintegrated stage We have built out of pulp from the dead poets page.

~Meghan Punschke 8/4/07

Hypolimnion

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Ur ch in B ar ren Trapped, like a solitary sea urchin cast into a tall glass of obligation, I am here. Like a bobcat in a cage coerced into ascertaining self. But, like Siddhartha forever cultivating patience, as I must fight the Quarters rage to gnaw this new terrain barren as well. Because, like a sucker, now and again when a little curiosity falls in as a check, I mistake it for algae, and open Aristotles lantern wide to reveal my hollow-like digestion. And albeit foreign to a degree it stretches easily like a canyons great divide Until my pentamorous symmetry appears less glamorous than it should be. For my tests geometric perfection is already hidden by those points, rather dull, as on the hull of unshed adolescence they are all akimbo like antennae but as worthless as baby-babble. And though I may seem to be sentient my tiny tube feet are itinerant. They are clinging to these crystal walls like wet noodles to a wooden cupboard. As I move like a mole, inefficient and slow, plowing eyeless toward my goal but like Time, always forward.

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Beg in ning I. I am mindful mathematics. That barrier before transgression. While loopholes from persona past fight the physicality of body, I am already reminiscent of all that surrounds us. II. As you clear plates for bird mouths, I think of how we will bear creative genius, with all its glorious underpinnings. Me. Tied to your mind. You. Tied to my thigh. I clear a mental path for bird eyes. You think that we will fare acute scrutiny. But that is just presupposing, as the rest of it cannot yet be written.

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The Sce ne a t C ity H all Time drags with nervous laughter as little parties of crazed people pack into the dingy tile corridor where black plaques with white letters read, PUBLIC RESTROOM ARE LOCATED ON THE 3RD FLOOR SOUTH.

Foreign languages fly about. Spanish, Hebrew and Chinese meld into a vexatious whir, while English is held with curt reserve.

Time grows with anxious chatter as cameras flash and reservations are made. Oh, how their lives will change. In just one hour or three. The lines look a lot like the DMV.

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Gr ac e Around isle five, you might find Grace, the supermarket sample lady. She carts her electric skillet from store to store. Her compass arced amber eyebrows tread lightly on white pancake makeup settled into a fine fissure delta. Tha Hispanics always try to get out of cookin tha hot dishes. She hates how the Asians giggle at her when she orders at the buffet on Fifteen Division Street. Teeheehee bif. Teehee poke o chicki?

She tells the Chinaman, No sweet! through pursed lips and squinted eyes. And declares, Anything that red and shiny, HAS to be sweet.

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L ove in Tra nslat ion I have gambled more than I have learned; my endless compromise for Lust

Have you ever seen this show before? Jupiter, shes the lead dancer. few know that shes diagnosed with cancer, its all corporeal, and its still indecent for the condemned soul to parade around in a Victorias Secret thong. George touched her breast once; it was as if Iron Maiden was a goddess, Centaura is half Puerto Rican soltera; Mercury will eat out Barbie under the condition that Brian gets to watch.

I remember, those days, when we would fuck until dawn Ida was the best lover I ever had! I guess I have matured significantly since then, but that sweet Candy is always on my mind!

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Psych olog ic al M old

I. She had a problem with sandwiches. She hated the kind that came in her lunchbox. Turkey and mustard and cheese, slapped between two soggy pieces of bread, wrapped in cellophane for half of the day breeding who knows what kind of bacteria. She would con her classmates into apportioning their love packed parcels. Chips, a Fruit Roll-Up or juice, promising entire boxes of Hostess cakes for which she had no intent to pay, in return for soup or crackers.

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II. Sandwiches lay neatly tucked in soft plastic cases, until she would return home to hide the untouched bread/ meat combo in the closet or under the bed. Baggies filled with solid mold, green gray white spores, devoid of the luncheon meats that once existed. For the odd ritual of hidden sustenance permeated with no more than wit as a rectifier.

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A B eat P oet s Slow G rind I. On a humid September night, he was mocked, in the dark, wide, gawky flashes of porcelain glinted with the uncertainty of Clark Kent. As he stalked around that rooftop with a 40oz in his left hand, model chicks huddled in a corner and squawked, Hes so weird. But he pressed on.

II. In a years time, here stands a man reluctantly powerful, as he jerks and hunches his shoulders in awkward repose, with a beat poet's slow grind he discusses foil. And, little does he know that all of this has passed. A shedding of significant skin To have become what was then on the brink of staccato.