KJ HANNAH GREENBERG - POEMS

KJ Hannah Greenberg captures the world in words. Her newest poetry collection is The Wife/Mom (Seashell Books, 2019). Her most recent fiction collection is Walnut Street (Bards & Sages Publishing, 2019).

Like Some Croupier
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​We dealt love like some croupier, forever standing behind “best strategies,” 
Paying forward nothing costing self-esteem, complicated remunerations,
Excepted. When taking time to master brio wrapped in shantung, we cried
The tenth decimal of all prescience regarding anathematized, filched ways.
To wit, our enduring éclat, a genetic marvel, remained flatteringly useless.

Small errors, it seemed, during those regular pastimes, consumed our chic
Vessels, disallowed our accumulation of far worse scenarios than regularly
Suffered by casino employees, zoo officials, club goers, or bingo fanatics.
Thus, that sometimes competent gambler kept ambitiously learning feints 
When not passing pieces, elsewise restricting resources saved for friends.

In the end, our mislaid license to payoff partial sets, bad hands, guesses,
Compelled us to give back lots. Meanwhile, barred, talented players,
Pernicious about fortune, cashed in terrible cards, our splenetic bleats
Ignored among their: diamantés, one-armed bandits, gratis hotel stays.

No clean, warm, semi-animate objects buffeted our yammers as lights,
Bells, pit managers lingered surprisingly present alongside mad house
Winnings. Those breccia samples charged alongside our better options,
Made meringue of our good opinion, unwound our moral compass as
Mere background checks of major gamers saved our sport and career.

Today, high rollers abide no such awkwardness, demand full comps.
Expert croupiers neatly spool away all manner of crowd frustrations.
Money talks when synthetic shapes fade at grand prizes. Private jets,
Likewise exigent hustlers, amaze more than unmarried ladies’ acts.
Besides, poison methods champion no dealers flagrantly fraternizing.

The Shrikes
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​Certain “innocent” passerine birds deign to be carnivorous
To feast on fascia, muscle, blood, to gobble up animate pulp, 
To flense the flesh and fat from prey, to fatten from critters.
 
Constantly, we folks of fairly typical appearance and intellect,
“Invite” ourselves to act as secondary “authorities,” to attempt
Conversing crudely with potential apprentices, to give orders.
 
See, aureate or charcoal, no amount of cosmesis can overcome
Nature’s reactor control rods. No shiny hafnium, ever provided
Specious security to smaller, less formidable, sorts of creatures.
 
Plentiful plumage notwithstanding, wolf spiders’ oubliettes, solo
Among global fauna’s myriad hazards, can’t satisfy their owners’
Cephalothoraxes to tumescence when quarry’s viscera go missing.
 
Neither avocet nor pigeon similarly approbate gory ends; beckon
Bits and bobs of fascia, intestines, marrow bones, fail gainsaying 
The delicate loveliness of eyes, feathers, beaks, ruinous pursuits.

​Transversing Ideological Deserts

Our society transverses ideological deserts,
But leaves behind nothing at oases, instead
Molting impractical expectations of success,
Or sloughing certain sporadic clumps of truth.

Even when our verity’s eviscerated, we demand 
That raconteurs grasp why euros, yen, dollars stay 
Foisted on artificial altars. To us, savvy word slingers
Remain nothing more than chewers of expose bilge.

Critical thinking’s many threnodies, those last-ditch 
Attempts to correct our unscrupulous manipulations,  
Every so often, break through, impact bleary brains, 
Register difference among right, wrong, uncertain.

It’s not so much that our mental whirlybirds interrupt 
All samadhis as it is that quiescent notions have soft feet, 
Frequently pop up in unexpected places, nearly constantly
Yield to exacting sobriquets, bold paeans, flashy rhetoric.

Meanwhile, rebellious sorts remain unafraid of highbrows
Keen on caparisoning, forcing paroxysms. Bold insurgents
Tend toward detailed lists of shipped goods, comprehensive
Bills of lading, meticulous accounts of drayage or long hauls.

Accountability, sometimes, does manifest among amanuenses,
Does burn bright due to diligence of free, plus for-fee versions,
Possibly recognize perceptions left behind by genre giants, by
Children’s scratchings, also by cognitive Piezoelectric Effects.

Eventually, both festschrifts and encomia do nothing for
Humanity’s evolution. Anet, most of our widdershin pains
Wind up addressing stentorian declarations, go unnoticed,
Alternatively, stay unwelcomed by our assigned consignees.


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