ROBERT BEVERIDGE - POEMS

Robert Beveridge (he/him) makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry in Akron, OH. Recent/upcoming appearances in Red Coyote Review, Deep South Magazine, and Aromatica Poetica, among others.

​THE HEALING WATERS OF CALIENTE

​The springs were here, once,
a destination for the sick
or weary. An oasis
for the bereft of spirit, perhaps.
 
Rising Tam, the first-timer,
opened at 3-1 in a maiden claimer
at Turf Paradise. I put a twenty
on him, the expected dividend enough
to get me through till payday.
 
Before cars were invented,
Caliente was a short day's ride
from Phoenix. It is said
broke horseplayers would go
to find inspiration in the hot springs.
 
My benefactor—someone I will
never see—placed ten thousand
on the entry to win. Both
were pretenders, who had run
this stretch too much, and Rising Tam
was ninety-nine to one, or more;
tote boards don't go that high.
 
Caliente is dry now. Irrigation
drained the waters,
the legendary once again replaced
by the practical; now only the remains
of its grand hotel jut
from the sand, reach up
to an empty sky.
 
The Arizona crowd knows a good thing
when it sees one, and Rising Tam
was sent off at 20-1. Never asked,
he crossed the line three lengths
to the good of the entrymates.
I pocketed my four hundred twenty-two
dollars and walked into the chill night,
hand and pocket wet with belief.

​THE PAINTED BLONDE

​What would it take to be young again?
 
So young that the word cancer has no meaning
 
so young that every girl in the world is a stunning beauty
another gorgeous blonde with deepgreen eyes
passes the window in skintight leather
 
and you know you can never have her
but, you think, it's no harm if I try
 
even the cockroaches and the rats
in the walls sing her gorgeous praises
when she passes, the Painted Blonde.
 
She is the beauty you have dreamed of all your life
in your little cabin by the lake
miles from the nearest road
 
she is the beauty you have dreamed of all your life
in your little apartment above the street
in the slums of Paris
 
she is the beauty you have dreamed of all your life
in your attic chamber above the harlots
in the brothels of Nevada
 
and you wish that in her dreams
she would wish of you

​RED RIBBONS/RED WINGS

​the car alarm goes off and you hit
the button on the remote control
then you stick your keys back
in your pocket and beep, beep, beep,
here we go again. A safety feature
that draws attention to the vehicle
at all times may, one consider, be ill-
thought. You ask yourself: after
this is all over, will vehicles still
have alarms? Or will we have moved
on to something newer, improved,
sophisticated, even more prone
to being rubbed the wrong way
in the pocket of too-tight jeans?
A question to be pondered later,
because now, once you get this
infernal beep to go away, you must
get back to your edits on Chinese
Ecology in the Middle Ages.

​SET IN STONE
for Allison Thomas

​Three diamonds, small, catch light,
prism against the white gold band.
It nestles
against your left hand, safe,
around your ring finger.

​SILVER

​There is a moment of perfect
clarity right when the arthritis
in your back makes it feel
about to snap and you look
up and what do ya know,
only a quarter of the yard
is less than jungle. You let
go of the tension bar,
collapse on the back stairs
in the blessed silence,
stare at your nemesis, good
for little except coiffure
and plumes of blue smoke.
 
Still, even when one more
step is impossible, even when
you’ve run out of ways
to combine the seven ingredients
in your kitchen, even when
you find yet another place
the mice can get in, you look
at the whole mess and somehow
it’s your weeds and your mice
and your month-old mayonnaise
and somehow that makes it okay.