White Print Inc

by Rob Lipton

After the soldiers fired
down the alley, the moon
was still full and the girl’s head
was resting on her teddy bear backpack
the commander of the hidden soldiers
walked impatiently toward the girl
took out his pistol and shot her
twice in the head, then, changing
his mind raised his machine gun to his waist
and emptied a clip into the body
which jumped as if alive
obviously just the rebound
of the lead hitting the cobble
stones

we always hear the success stories
the sprinter wins a gold medal
after a near amputation, the God
of our father saves a slave’s bastard son
but that’s just a sucker bet, like the casino
pictures of slot machine winners
the Burts and Floras smiling in bad light
God puts up things too, chants
and crepuscular sunlight with the distant
beauty of a domed mosque, obedient
Abraham and his sharp knife
school girls giggling home,
blood only rising in their cheeks

by Rob Lipton

We marched off the distance from the storefront to where the half-track had stopped, 112 meters, the road was dusty and dug up by tanks, the store owner, as soon as was discreet, washed Adi’s blood off the slate flooring, arterial wounds will allow all the body’s blood to drain in less than 30 seconds, faster for teenagers, they brought him in with a messy half grin and winking eyes, as if he were telling you that he would’ve been back in a minute if it weren’t for the sniper’s tumbling bullet that had rummaged around in his chest like a staggering drunk looking for a hidden bottle. By way of explanation, his throwing hand hung off the stainless steel table, clutching a frog.

by Rob Lipton

the wasp god was down to his last
thermometer, intolerable during times
of plenty, but he would abide
it wasn’t as if the span of days
allotted were necessary as a reminder
or the manner in which his wife
would nag him about oral sex
sideways comments about “size
mattering after all” were a buzz
kill, but there was Nancy with her lavish
breasts and guttural chug
when she would come repeatedly
as if she were an action figure
in a porno, sometimes one couldn’t
tell the damage done by the mercury
or the action of preparing a mud nest
stuffing paralyzed spiders in amongst
the eggs, some little responsibility, not
enough for fond memories, but this still
confuses laughter with hollow panicked
guffaws, the kind that usually greet a banjo
player swinging his instrument into
the audience section failing to participate
in the sing-along, alone, left to the dust
and intemperate swags of neurons firing
like a platoon of Barney Fifes late to the party,
you have time for rummy and mixed doubles,
to arrange the oval things into perfect circles

by Rob Lipton

the woman, eyes open on her mechanical
bed, looks up at 45 degrees, she whimpers
like a kitten when the nurse comes to change
her sheets, wrapped in a thermal blanket
she is almost a spirit of Christmas past, dark circles
around her eyes, deep in her bed, every last tooth
removed from her mouth, she waits for news like
an astronomer waiting for the solar wind to clear,
I come into focus, my periodic visit to her night sky
simply noted, I am part of a prediction, the galaxies
circling, something will blow up, develop into flamboyant
waves of heavy metals and dust, this is the shrinking
universe that has everything collect into lumps or burn
to a cinder, a tired cooking metaphor that leads back
to the woman who breathes in little sips, ears scanning
for the sound of exploding suns or her grandson chewing
a chocolate chip cookie, I focus on the Yule log resting
on her nightstand and watch gravity, as if confused, work its
way through her body, flattening secrets to her thickened tongue

by Rob Lipton

They said it was summer
not the little white-washed gas chamber
not the altar of the glitzy cathedral
Christ dying in gold plate and garnet
there is the brutal heat that pumps
itself into exhaustion at twilight
fruit ripening in time lapse
easy pickings, the heft and
crush of fruit against a tongue
tongues, with a hooded wink
replacing fruit, you know
the drill, eating-fucking, lots
of “eating” in summer
so, summer gives writers
the low-hanging fruit of
fruit and it’s always you
playing kick-the-can
or some convoluted hide-n-seek
sucking the last bits of light
from the sky, clean
sweat and ice cold water
the room with the newspaper
wrapped father, dark
and sepulcher, still
with suit and tie
a small light pushing back
the summer night, crickets
in the scrub canyon, a heavy
red in the west reluctant to
go away, like the kids
playing down the street
this is not the summer
of twin F-16s targeting
a slow-moving building
bodies stuck in rebar
and concrete ripen in the summer heat
formerly children playing in the dying
light, dying as the air is sucked from
lungs, little shrapnel punctures
faces blue-gray
the smell overpowering as
sight leaves and the other senses are left
to the rot in the retiring heat