the ballad of clam shell cud
I
clam, 24 yrs old, looking for:
1) mr. runaway, with secret bloodbuzz
2) mr. baby, afraid of brainy daughters
3) mr. city, with lemonworld apartment
4) mr. conversation, starts fake gospel
5) mr. anyone’s, lit-up & little
II
clam, inform your celibate phantom:
by one knowing sailor, your
sleeping sea split
by one caring comet, your
red berry pressed
clam, inform your pending celibate past:
a weird turn-on is the new black
III
how this cemetery golden boy
reel a girlfriend back with
shakespeare’s charming barbarism,
oscillate a girlfriend with
some bigmouth half-joke,
some half-death vicar hand
IV
a dancing tree with mistletoe words,
a boa constrictor courtesan,
a boudoir rodeo,
a sun-man with a guitar goodbye
V
screw the baby-boy’s mint high!
i want a friday the 13th night,
gone between here & kyoto
the lullaby cut is just,
in blood-end we trust.
VI
clam,
before your lazy heart
needs wishbone contact,
case its tiny
red rendezvous
underwater,
in everything that’s
sleeptalking:
“what?” &
“maybe”
VII
like anchor bachelorette ancestors,
i have hidden in submarine sonnets
& the dark oceania hyperballad
i will sacrifice the heirloom headphones
& have someone cradle me
in the mouth’s cosmogony,
sun & thunderbolt in unison
VIII
gone in the sleep machine,
we bag the night, taste the
window to the extraordinary anything, we—
the sullen daredevil & the paper girl
o’’sailor sick & pure,
i want your criminal imagination,
your carrion valentine,
your werewolf love
i want your first, your every single child
IX
clam & i &
the fiction of
a women’s century
we dress-up in blue dialogue,
we console in a photo of
jonathan & david
freak & apostle love
X
pandora’s luck
overfloweth & i’m no
halo-mender
no, i’m no
fifty-fold clown
pitch the angelhood &
know my truth, bluebeard-baby:
i’m a garland of grenades
i wax & wane blood
i’m a pearly-dewdrops bitch
Source Material: song titles from The National, The Shins, The Smiths, The Magnetic Fields, The Cure, Architecture in Helsinki, Björk, Fiona Apple, Belle & Sebastian, and Cocteau Twins
Ariel Clark-Semyck is a recent graduate from the University of Notre Dame. She lives in Chicago where she serves as a part-time henchwoman for various places of business. Her poems and reviews have been published in or are forthcoming in Witch Craft Magazine, The Nottingham Review, Third Coast Review, and Re:Visions.
