A Poem by F. Daniel Rzicznek

F. Daniel Rzicznek

F. Daniel Rzicznek

F. Daniel Rzicznek's books of poetry are Settlers (Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press), Divination Machine (Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press) and Neck of the World (Utah State University Press), and he is coeditor of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry: Contemporary Poets in Discussion and Practice (Rose Metal Press). His poems have appeared in Kenyon Review, West Branch, Blackbird, Colorado Review, and Notre Dame Review. He currently teaches and directs the creative writing program at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio.

Wiggle Room

The afterlife is nothing but weird chairs

Again too many friends to keep track of

What’s wrong with calculating eventuality

Five thrones for five airtight falsehoods

Heaven will only hover so low, I’m told

Branches, mulch, fennel, cloves, bird bones

The wall-to-wall scent of stock boiling

Pics of all of the perverse ornate nostalgia

Down in the vowels of their programming

They see me as a child and will, always

Like the moth unnoticeable when resting

Somehow they are a preposterous comfort

Triggers lost in the fields of green code

That pay the rented price even now, rooted

Endless, irrational rivers of brown bottles

I settle beneath like some damaged bell

Who am I and why, why do I keep dying

I can only channel a few sunken voices

Summon the sympathy parade to march