“Huevos Rancheros,” “Orange Sharpie” and “Ivory Finger”

“Huevos Rancheros,” “Orange Sharpie” and “Ivory Finger”

Huevos Rancheros

sometime i am moved by unspeakable rages

sometime i am choked by a mescaline sadnesses

am i

am i

you r

thy wr once a gift

winter glean bakes the chemical greenscreen asunder

winter water fake a flock of hose i knew u were thr

upon a heart

there were a conversation we need to have

there were a conversation we could not have

and i tried to say something true you and say’d

no way hosay those r only a many s-s-s symbols

there were these and these i later found out

became a way

of seeing — such whn deadeye

tongues question thmslvs— my life

so thn we’d fork egg and verde egg

on hot plates and twnty yrs go by out the window

and allende give a potent exmple ample if you mght

add what become of this what become filtered

through

red air red Seattle air who knows

for no1 cld say

Orange Sharpie

for a time razor green wire spit fire in a bin

of tin and seaweed grew in fascinating flourishes

behind your ear lobes and at one point these ethical

antics stewed inside your brainstem and made you

lighter than air and in the beginning in the beginning

the laughter of the land and so on when eyes nestle

nightfall all the insufferable rivers of it when finally

the thunderclap and cloud are as sad as the mouths

of stonegods or ripe angels or rotting bones where you

may drown me flack my rack flay my clay with poisonous

darts or pattern or pattern the sky with me eventually

time had no time for time my hairline was as snow is upon

the knowledge-ache and confections of wind rolled liked

drums on the ocean snarling down the meanness of weather

for your cannibal-love-heart and during the vine of days i

guessed my father was dying like a dying christ in a wheel-

barrow my sister looked skyward the dead moon in her eyes

and you said let me spit on this pain for i for i will eat every

drop of rain without a single confession of sadnesses

Ivory Finger

lucent light thread my blood akimbo

worship that tempts the dark corridor

of ember in my pain

smoldering like glasses night descends

on stinking bones venom hissing a twilight

steelyard of green flaming trees a river

spilling into blindness lightning passes

the surface of a metal shell you will see

how this martyr’s mouth merely exits

About the Author

Caleb Nelson

Caleb Nelson is a third year PhD student studying poetry at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Currently, he serves as the Editor-in-Chief for Cream City Review. His work has appeared in or is forthcoming in Parhelion Literary Magazine, Stoneboat, Prick of the Spindle, Superstition Review, Red Savina Review, Storm Cellar, Josephine Quarterly, Heavy Feather Review, Gravel, Into the Void, Split Rock Review, Epigraph, and Cardinal Sins.