Read More: A Brief Interview with Guinotte Wise
Granite City
This place squelches my dreams
A patched doublewide trailer
Unkempt fences Johnson grass
A horse she says that’s ol’ Ribbon
Dust devils grit whorl and whirl spin
The girl is young, perhaps twenties
As am I, my car ticks in the heat
A dog crawls into a shady place
A truck arrives in showy noise and
unnecessary dust fills its space
Filters over us another layer
Oh shit she says it’s my ex he
just got out of Granite City
That’s a lockup somewhere in
Oklahoma, so a con has come
to add his anger and petulance
to our meeting here and I will
never see the poor inside of
the trailer or feel scant relief
of the rattling window unit that
drips rust down the sidewalls
and whatever else was lightly
promised by shorts so short and
dimpled smile and beered-up
winks and FUCK he says as he
approaches FUCK again she
looks skyward its color light as
cigarette smoke the dog slinks
beneath the the trailer the con I
see is unarmed, not so big but all
enlarged by rage and futility
I pick up a t-post swing batlike
his rage is dead and so is he
Self defense is in my thoughts
and so is Granite City this
place squelches my dreams
Rodeo Voodoo
In back of the chutes I stretch and
do some chinups on the top board
then duct tape my old boots ripping
tape and cover all but fixed rowels
bend my knees in cossack dance
shooting one leg out and then the other
warm my rope with rosin bag in
unintended parody of self abuse
up and down and up and down
twist my shoulders knees bent
as though skiing or sashaying on
a dance floor, all smartass and
pumpup, I pull my hat down tight
it bends my ears so I look dopey
but I’m feeling right, feeling lucky […]
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Guinotte Wise welds steel sculpture and writes on a farm in Resume Speed, Kansas. His work can be seen at http://www.wisesculpture.com His fiction, art and poetry have appeared in numerous literary reviews including Atticus, The McGuffin and Shotgun Honey. His short story collection (Night Train, Cold Beer) won publication by a university press and not much acclaim. Two more books since. His wife has an honest job in the city and drives 100 miles a day to keep it. His Amazon author’s page with more books is Here. Tweet him @NoirBut.
Read More: A Brief Interview with Guinotte Wise