Shaya Bock - Multiple Works
Short Stories
I read a book of short stories, title
Useless and Lupus Dead at thirty-nine.
Putrid spitting lizard gouging under
Limbs and hourglass tunnels pattering.
Autumn citrus saplings out of season
Birthing bitter lumps of fruit to a branch,
Squeezing lemons under glass booted leaves
Cinderblock walls razed for a meadow of
Children’s laughter growing amongst the weeds
The shade leaking syrup on our bellies.
You worry about things like having kids
killing you, working hard to live to find
life’s not worth living. That’s why you waited
six months after writing that resume.
Why you leave your artwork in the basement
Illusions faded and cut to bear frame,
still echoing in canyons of stretched skin
and that damned little life expectancy.
LIVING THROUGH MEMORY
The burial lot at the end of the strip,
Miles of scouring for names
all so close to being familiar.
I try to hold each name
in my memory for a moment,
and it’s gone in place of hers.
101.1 WCBS FM, NEW YORK!
Beegies, Blondie, and The Beatles;
Bronx to new jersey every other weekend
An anthem pressed up to autoglass.
Those moments, ambered like honey in my memory
She chauffeured in a shrunk
Ruby red Toyota Camry sedan
The three boys squished in a
clown car back seat. A bubble of nausea
headache and forever new car smell
Unveiling the grave
- Myrna balch
She gave with an open hand -
soft weighty pebbles line the headstone
Still freshly turned wet silt
almost choked down tears
the sole’s edge plastered with red clay
on borrowed leather dress shoes.
We tucked her coffin under soil blanket.
And to comfort an eternity,
sang a farewell lullaby.
Her perfume of soft flowers,
a bourbon-colored splash
in the glass flacon half-full,
and the form of a woman, classy
if not for the frosting hidden hips.
The smell of strawberry lime, lacquered
Trident chewing gum,
of cheap nespresso instant coffee, stuck to
acid yellowed teeth. That’s how
I will remember her.
Red Line Bus Haibun
Passing yellow parking bollards cast no shadows seen through the stipple-edged, gray scum-
stained windows of the 905. And the Albany streets shimmer ever so unnaturally under a sun
shining directly overhead. Pavement crumbles even after they redo it – and redo it –
cobblestoned roads rest unbeaten beneath Central Avenue. The telephone poles fly past in rows
imitating a limbless winter forest rotting in the sun. There were once real forests here too. Oak or
ash or pine, something other than bare poles weathered in service of commodified information.
Corporate signage buzzing electric pulses, humming through the cold of winter. And the pigeons
who nest their chicks under neon warmth instead of their native tree hollows. Track the poles and
wires, follow transformer to generator,
where trees are stolen
from our children’s future and
again, their children.
The Metropolitan Water Cycle
(In Response to No. 61 Rust and Blue, & Untitled (Black on Grey) – Mark Rothko)
The mold had stayed
in the bathroom until now,
a well-trained pet. Sit mold. Stay mold.
Fed from leaky faucets,
It stares back in complacency.
Rain after dusk; a sheet of gruel-sleet gunking
the auto glass. Wipers clogged stiff with old water grime.
Pointed tips of curled-in, dewy leaves scrambling off
The fragile limbs of hollowed oaks
after summer hailstorms, crossed croons
calling across Hudson River ripples at the moon.
My mind is sidewalk spit, a pond of
condensation swelling with dust bunnies
and gathering dirt flecks. A universe full
of nothing but period, and comma.
A puddle screaming for the sun
to dry up its only
existence.