Deborah Meadows grew up in Buffalo, NY. After graduating from SUNY, Buffalo in Philosophy and English, she moved to California where she taught for many years. She is an Emerita faculty member at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, lives with her husband in Los Angeles’ Arts District/Little Tokyo, and has published over a dozen books of poetry most recently Neo-bedrooms (Shearsman), Lecture Notes, a duration poem in twelve parts (BlazeVOX [books]), and The Demotion of Pluto: Poems and Plays (BlazeVOX [books]). The first portion of Bumblebees is an e-chap published by BlazeVox, Spring 2022, with illustrations by Geoffrey Gatza
Spring Lines
Configure me near lenticular attraction
more of it, response to beatings, carved keep,
scrapped out hulk made a name for itself,
satellite mapped snow depth, prelude
envelope—climbing vine Persephone turn:
it all comes
up, not every accumulation in the novel of experience
bends toward change (maturity, deterioration, etc.) in our
protagonist. But, in the right hands, our reader morphs,
ambiguity as the underlying condition of love,
representation always falling short of rain itself,
sampled worlds and selves mere museum pieces
or poems, not commercially prepared slides
for narrow hallways. In each others’ arms,
came into acceleration at lift-off, an idea
of futurity off to the side, treasure dusted
off to present in a fair light, hospital time
drive at dawn along flood control channel,
circulating coin of fluid dynamics,
supply towns congregated toward
tower, at-grade rail, power stanchions
stitched a topographic contour, chalk lines
snapped briskly: we have our guide to
the stairs, to the stars, dirt and ditches
corrugated toward power, skimming
scam, billing fraud, sold from car trunk,
ambition for two hours at a time, line up
line down, storm torn, three bags full,
four fortunates flee: ah, frugal again
illegally occupying space, so-called,
test strip of property, unlisted, in play:
artist’s acquisition, section map,
fallen tree milled to potential use, yes,
we belong here, sort of, oil our body,
of flirt and estate, acrostic vertical
long-stem iris, gravity of mother,
shadowed
bodies
film shoot wrapped the block, truant
ordered to live with grandparents named
gaffer and coil, put away, up at night.
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