CAMERON LOVEJOY - POEMS

Cameron Lovejoy is a writer, poet, and Lindy Hopper. He grew up in Carolina but hit the road at 17. For ten years, he tramped the planet, realizing quickly how many stories he had to tell, and wrote furiously. New Orleans adopted him in early 2017, where he now resides, sweaty and content. You can find him there writing poems on the street. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Boned and the Scarlet Leaf Review.

PHOTO: Tim Cofield 
 http://www.timcofield.net/ ​

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A Tired Poet for Hire
​

​The pith-hungry poet leaves home for only
     wine and apples. So why am I, Orpheus
     with phony syndrome, typing here on the street?
My need is to sprawl on plush under roof
     of rain, peruse leaf after seed of lyrical cyanide.
My ears hunt the lamplight hush of silent rooms,
     the hug of dusky rugs, the warmth of muted womb.
My eyes itch for the sleepy tug of endless reading,
     locutionary run of locomotives, to
    hop alphabetical trains.
My fingers almost feel the parched pulp of feathered
     paper, the weathered leather feel of vellum,
     smell the attic odor against their tender prints.
And this is why, on this piercing street, with tome inside the bone,
     I cease.
 
 

New to New Orleans
​

​Eyeballs like marbles at the sound of her name.
The navel of America, shaped like a clown’s grin,
she bobs on the moat that separates her brain
from her heart — neither knowing where she’s been.
 
Where the rats were sent to pay rent and wallow
and still do to an extent. Where the father
of America’s melody grew up gathering fodder
from the gutter where he’s been sentenced since always
 
and a day. Where his melanin made him lesser than,
but his donations holier than Hollywood — he won
best supporting shoulder. Where genius sprung
from the weight of a violent thumb.
 
Where the storm made room in this house
for me. Where the market, itself, claims race.
Where white knuckles tickle the ivory keys
once fondled by the makers of this.
 
Where I, in my blithe redundancy,
strip the earth of all its color. Though my body
may sit well with those who see me,
it’s history by whom I should be crucified.
 
 

Panic
​

​A tender brick sits askew within in the wall.
A braid of moss upon its neck, a corner cut.
Its hue like that of old encrusted blood
(except for mortar dried over).     
 
As tentacle winds come back, the house depends upon
the brick. But this, a boxer’s tooth knocked loose,
may be persuaded. After panic makes decision,
every shingle hits the street.
 
 

Still
​

​Molly is still a writer.
What is the matter with her?
 
We’ve not seen the eyes
of whom we speak for six or seven weeks.
 
She must be weeping in the study, succumbing to the
sinister     that is
 
existence.
 
She must be writing a novel on the novelty of
sorrow    or moaning
of humanity through the tempest of
 
a pen.
 
The only thing we have is knowing art cannot be rushed.
 
The magnum opus in the offing
 
may cause wisdom.
Alcohol may intensify this effect.
 
 
 

​Memory Spanning the Chrysalis
 

I remember having legs, a million, wished to be
the centipede, threading through the boggy
ground with giant fears of blue up there.
 
Falling tomahawks, whatever they were
eaten by them my friends would be
plump and slow and green and scared.
 
But we, the lucky ones, after mush inside our paper
flues, bloomed into a thing akin, adrenaline
against a former torpid ribbon. With eyeballs
 
on our backs, pumpkin tendrils for tongues, we
hover, blithe above the bog, up here
among the blue.

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