Introducing
Tom Snarsky

 

 

The Fateful Hand

 

 

The meadowlark makes you try

to guess their favorite movement

 

You have three guesses

and run out

 

Which is embarrassing

because there are only four

 

Movements in the whole

symphony their favorite being

 

The third the adagio the

tempo of a careful jellyfish

 

The meadowlark has never seen

 

 

 

 

 

Soft Cloth Car Wash

 

 

          Over at the Blue & Gray Mall

   Something different is forming

 

You have to ask for it with your hands

Open, & no expectations

 

If you do you’ll see a bright

Pink balloon in the middle of a forest

 

Painted tapestry of sky at the back

Of a crowded theater, most of the

 

Players green & brown & the star a

Pale rose floating up  /  to infinity

 

 

 

 

voire mortel

 

 

this poem is about a play i didn’t write

 

& won’t

 

called voire mortel

 

the play is mostly about bari

 

bari is a lucid dreamer

 

sometimes she mentions this

 

to the people at her job

 

at the walmart vision center

 

her best friend cassandra

 

her boss ari

 

the odd customer

 

it is one of the major threads

 

in bari’s text conversations with M

 

in the play it is not made clear

 

who M is

 

but when bari gets home

 

from work she usually texts M

 

their conversations are projected

 

on a big screen upstage

 

for the audience to see

 

M is the person with whom bari

 

has the closest most honest relationship

 

they talk about everything

 

especially their hopes

 

& dreams

 

so when bari has her first dream

 

she can’t control

 

at least not fully

 

she tells M about it

 

she tells M the dream

 

takes place in a park

 

which is true

 

in the dream she & her friends

 

from high school are using

 

golf clubs to blow up half-used lighters

 

at the basketball court

 

near the small hill

 

the neighborhood kids use

 

in the winter

 

for sledding

 

which is true

 

she tells M the part of the dream

 

she can’t control is when

 

her best friend cassandra

 

explodes a lighter

 

with a nine iron

 

& then immediately

 

turns around

 

& kisses her

 

which isn’t true

 

but that’s what she tells M

 

we cannot judge from M’s reaction

 

via text but anyone

 

in the audience who has ever texted

 

wistfully

 

will know M’s love for bari

 

has become asymptotic in this moment

 

Marguerite Duras style

 

i will not write this play because

 

a) it will pale

 

in comparison to

 

actual Marguerite Duras

 

nor was the Huis Clos

 

thing with ari bari & cassandra

 

ever going to get off

 

the ground

 

& b)

 

i am terrified of acting

 

like in awe

 

of it

 

& i’d want to play bari

 

in the play

 

so badly

 

but i couldn’t do it

 

i’d be too scared

 

so i’m going to keep it an imaginary play

 

where i can imagine myself

 

as bari in the final scene

 

where the audience sees

 

what really happened

 

in bari’s dream

 

in the dream

 

cassandra destroys a lighter

 

with her nine iron

 

the spark ignites the remaining fluid

 

makes a brief flash of flame

 

& when cassandra turns to bari

 

& walks slowly

 

toward her

 

i would play this slack

 

unguarded

 

bari has no idea

 

no defense whatsoever

 

against the nine iron

 

so when cassandra

 

smashes bari’s knee

 

with her nine iron

 

although it doesn’t hurt

 

because dream etc.

 

the betrayal is so total

 

as to be a kind

 

of death

 

voire mortel

 

and to play bari i would have to know

 

that after this dream

 

every part of bari’s life

 

will change

 

feel different

 

none of the tiny screws

 

in the glasses repair kits

 

will fit right again

 

ari will start

 

to cut her hours

 

& she won’t care

 

she will go to the park

 

on a day she now has off

 

a day she knows

 

cassandra isn’t working

 

she will buy a full lighter

 

at the corner store

 

on the way

 

& when she gets to the park

 

i would play this quickly

 

like she’s doing it

 

without thinking

 

she will leave the lighter

 

on the corner

 

of the concrete

 

& use both

 

her knees

 

to walk away

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time

 

the moment

we made it

a problem

it still passed

 

 

 

 

 

Seed Library

 

For as long as people have been planting things that they hope to grow, they have also been saving the seeds of those things in seed banks and seed libraries. A seed bank is for preserving seeds against possible threats of destruction, like a frost or a flood; a seed library is different. The purpose of a seed library is to share seeds freely with the public: in other words, the seed library as an institution is established on the premise that the best way to ensure the healthy growth of a thing is to share it with others, so that they can help to cultivate it too.

 

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