THREE POEMS by CLEM FLOWERS

I SAW GOODY PROCTOR KISSING THE DEVIL AT INSPIRATION POINT

Buckshot dawn ruins the McDonald's tomato thin drapes in this $40 a night room

Even desolation can't help me

I look out into the parking lot, tinged with sage in the cracks of the asphalt & a fine slurry of red dust & bad nights

A tumbleweed is wedged right beneath the back bumper & no matter how strong these early early morning gusts of eastern wind hit, it can't break loose

Mood

I sit back on the bed & see my phone light up.

Text message from Mom

"You OK?"

Goddamn you, tears, not right now; I'm trying to see the screen so I can send her a GIF of an Orange Cassidy thumbs up.

I hear a rooster crow outside.

BLUE DIAMOND IN THE MISERY

for Bluestockings Cooperative

Painted words of

hatred

On the well-tended

brick out front

The soap &

brushes come out &

playing music on the boombox &

the community grab a brush or

broom or rag to try to get the

Venom washed away

The Light Stays On

Attack & slander

On anyone

On anybody

On any body

not out of a Norman Rockwell

They make their bodies into new art

The Light Stays On

The world at large

Flings institutionalized bigotry as napalm -

Redlining, gerrymandering,

demanding control over

bodies in a way that's actually out of

1984 -

everything

anything

they can to flail

& lash out

to tear the

beauty down

The Light Stays On

For the lonesome, the heartbroke

the ones shunned by those who

said their love was "unconditional,"

the sweethearts who lost their

sweethearts when they opened

the door & lived their truth for

the first time in their lives

The Light Stays On

I mean - flowers

can't bloom

without any Light

DOMINIQUE WAS ROBBED IN THE '88 DUNK CONTEST AND I WILL DIE ANGRY ABOUT IT

Trae Young takes the ball down the court, eyes darting in 15 different directions, mind whirring as he calculates the likelihood of his pass making it to John Collins or if it might be better to kick it over to Huerter & the clock ticks away & should he just go barreling in to try to at least draw a foul for two but it is LeBron down playing center to give The Brow a chance to up his shooting percentage & the clock ticks away & so there's a high possibility that LeBron could probably body him out into the third row like Bam Bam Bigelow did to Spike Dudley in ECW in 1997 & would probably warrant nothing more than a comment from the the commentary team about the POWER of LeBron & understandably so, Trae is hesitant to run that route & the clock ticks away & now the fans are screaming & the bench players are screaming & the coach is screaming & the clock ticks away & the players on both teams on the floor look worried & the clock ticks away & the paralysis of opportunity sets in & the clock ticks away & the world is spinning like the ball is every time he dribbles & now he's calculating the angles & degrees of the axis the ball falls on & the sweat stings his eyes & the clock ticks away & the clock ticks away & the clock ticks away

& he & Clint Capella set a beautiful pick & roll

& Trae looks overjoyed

& Trae takes a bow to the symphony of boos from the Laker faithful

& I fall into the horde headed out into sticky humid night, trying to make every bit of the $11 popcorn count as I think

maybe I was just projecting

---

Clem Flowers (they/ them) is a poet, soft-spoken southern transplant, low rent aesthete, pizza man lover, gorgeous monstrosity, & dramatic tenor living in Home of Truth, Utah with their awesome wife & sweet kitty. Hella queer & non-binary poetry editor at Blue River Review, with publication credits including: Olney Magazine, Blue River Review, The Madrigal, Pink Plastic House Journal, Bullshit Lit, Corporeal, Holyflea, Anti-Heroin Chic, & Warning Lines Magazine. Author of chapbooks Stoked & Thrashing (Alien Buddha Press), eating rain// matchstick graveyard (Alien Buddha Press), & Two Out of Three Falls (Bullshit Lit). Found on Twitter: @clem_flowers.