Keith Flynn

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Chemo

Why spend a life bending a bow
toward a target already full of arrows?
If one were to think of the Grand Sublime
as an alphabet, one made of smoke certainly,

floating, with a flame that is nowhere in sight,
cinders of memory, without which no identity
is possible, but upon which rests tangible things,
fence posts, plastic toys, purloined bibles stuffed

with gray matter, report cards, receipts, and birth
certificates, built to remind us of a childhood,
a marriage, a favorite car, the scent of a beloved
that sticks to nothing, or an old man in a kitchen

playing his violin softly to himself. A black sea
beckons, your feet washed in its swell, and no
residue to drive toward or into, only foam
and salt to smell as it folds over and over again

like a gray-haired woman in a doorway waving.
The tapestry of darkness surrounding her does not
unravel, but she does, her fingers shrivel, her hair
flares into a cloud, her open lips curdle, and the color

of her blouse is lost, her hips, her feet, her silence,
her atoms are pixels orbiting, an ever-deepening
white noise of molecules broken, wisps scattering,
a drop of cream spun in a black cup, diluted and lost

in its spoon’s quiet swirl. The open frame of the door
way was always empty, no knob to hold and turn,
or hinge to fold your weight against and open,
only a hole where once a life had washed through,

now a single dollop of dew on your knuckle,
a necklace made of mist, following your humped
form like a halo through the buffering city,
the streets already disappearing beneath your feet.

Keith Flynn (www.keithflynn.net) is the award-winning author of eight books, including six collections of poetry: most recently Colony Collapse Disorder (Wings Press, 2013) and The Skin of Meaning (Red Hen Press, 2020), and two collections of essays, entitled The Rhythm Method, Razzmatazz and Memory: How To Make Your Poetry Swing(Writer's Digest Books, 2007), and Prosperity Gospel: Portraits of the Great Recession (RedHawk Publications, 2021). From 1984-1999, he was lyricist and lead singer for the nationally acclaimed rock band, The Crystal Zoo, which produced three albums: Swimming Through Lake Eerie (1992), Pouch (1996), and the spoken-word and music compilation, Nervous Splendor (2003). His latest album is Keith Flynn & The Holy Men, LIVE at Diana Wortham Theatre (2011). He is the Executive Director and producer of the TV and radio show, “LIVE at White Rock Hall,” (www.liveatwhiterockhall.com) and Animal Sounds Productions, both which create collaborations between writers and musicians in video and audio formats. His award-winning poetry and essays have appeared in many journals and anthologies around the world, including The American Literary Review, The Colorado Review, Poetry Wales, Five Points, Poetry East, The Southern Poetry Anthology, The Poetics of American Song Lyrics, Writer’s Chronicle. The Cimarron Review, Rattle, Shenandoah, Word and Witness: 100 Years of NC Poetry, Crazyhorse,and many others. He has been awarded the Sandburg Prize for poetry, a 2013 NC Literary Fellowship, the ASCAP Emerging Songwriter Prize, the Paumanok Poetry Award and was twice named the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet for NC. Flynn is founder and managing editor of The Asheville Poetry Review, which began publishing in 1994.