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