3 Sonnets by Juliet Gelfman-Randazzo
Purgatory
1.
My days are very ritular.
Very reliquary. Resounding.
This makes me happy or
this makes me dolorous.
Though that I would
not breathe aloud.
2.
A stack of wooden picture
frames leans gangly
on my wall.
So very rakish.
They all have at the least
one fatal flaw that renders
them unable to perform their job.
I let them lie there just like that.
It is a good reminder.
Things can just be, not cast in use.
3.
I’ve been twining this long
scarf I knit about my head.
I wind myself in its thick
rougey knit and feel I am
performing some important
job correctly.
4.
Clothes, coffee,
smile, sit.
5.
A person clips the corner
of my car. My mirror, to be
specific. I place a phone call.
I place another phone call.
I place myself adjacent to a
boyfriend, when approaching
the garage.
The garage attendant angles
all his questions toward the
boyfriend. Rakishly, I chime
in, from the corner
of his vision.
6.
My car has at the least
one fatal flaw that renders it
unable to perform its job.
The garage attendant twines this
duct tape round the mirror, long
and grey and tacky.
Suddenly, it’s able to perform
its job, nearly totally correctly.
Hero! I shout toward the car
garage attendant, from the
corner of his vision.
7.
My days are very titular.
Purgatorial.
I become pugnacious,
though just to snap out
of the dolor.
I do and I don’t.
Things can just be.
I park my car specifically.
I place it in its place.
8.
The boyfriend presses
my opposing mirror
to the corner of my car.
Correctly, closed.
9.
I gangle about my apartment,
snackily.
I cast on for another scarf.
Hero, I sing to myself,
almost correctly.
I allow myself to lie
about. For a little while.
The day is longer, greyer.
10.
I text a message then I text
another message.
I place text
adjacent to another
text.
11.
The one who clipped the
corner of my car texts back.
Just like that I feel myself
becoming nearly totally correct.
12.
A nap feels clad in tacky tape.
I’ve been whining these long
texts about my bed.
Every day it goes this way.
The sun sets just like that.
It’s still the day though, ok?
13.
Toilet paper esses round
my bedside table.
A bottle of nail polish dusty
lies upon its side, all duty.
Collapse is cast in imminence.
14.
A Rite Aid bottle
wears upon its cap
a spiky heart.
Purgatory
1.
There is a being
living in my freezer.
When I open up the
freezer, the being
disappears.
2.
Perhaps, you’d say,
it freezes.
3.
The being is growling.
There is a world in
which it wishes to
consume food oozing
warmth.
Within this world,
it lacks sharp teeth.
Its mouth unsuited to the
task of rendering heat
hot enough to melt the
food within its gelid box.
4.
Outside the freezer
is the world of me
and my life’s stuff.
I describe it as my
world, I live in it.
Icy toes, a space heater
popping heat like oil,
my things, the stuff
I thing the space with.
5.
I don’t describe it as
“my world,” I admit,
but I do live in it.
6.
At times a guest inscribes
themselves within this room
and waits with me.
This room, within my
home, is termed a living
room, although the same room,
in a more official space, takes
designation from its function for
a waiting.
7.
At times I ruminate
upon the difference
between living and
awaiting.
8.
At times my guests propose
an intervention, a dimension
in the interstice between
a living and a waiting.
Sometimes I use the drill
that peoples my credenza
like an object.
When not used for its
function it becomes
a decoration.
9.
I don't like thinking of this
transformation for too long,
although I do love decoration.
Yet in the moments I consider
this evolving context,
microcosmic reconfiguration,
I become uncomfortable.
10.
Sometimes I sit
within my living
room for so long,
I begin to get
uncomfortable.
11.
Sometimes the being living
in my freezer revs its chords
just like a purr and I shake
myself out of it.
I undecorate myself.
My things go where they should.
12.
At times I think about the ways
that everything within this room
can constitute a box, an object,
shelf, or decoration.
Depending on the day, I do
recategorize myself.
13.
Context, people say,
at times, is everything.
14.
There is a soda sitting
on the floor, from which
I have been sipping
this whole while.
The soda’s called Momenti,
which of course reminds me
to consider my objectively
impending death.
Though at times I do remember
to live in the moment.
Hang On a Second
1.
what if we intuited
each other’s bodies
2.
going once going
twice going in the
garbled
3.
accessibly tasty
4.
link in the pussy
5.
poet is only one letter
away from post
6.
perpetually conferencing
conferring something or
perhaps nothing conning
something into becoming
sonnefied
7.
this is a conference
8.
here is a patch
9.
wear it on your elbow
10.
jesus died for your zyns
11.
guy walks into a bar
the bartender says
oh shit
12.
i think you might be my cousin
13.
oh i know you from
the internet oh i know
you from the internet oh
i know you from the
internet oh
i don’t know
anything
14.
on the side of the truck
in times new roman font
it read in no uncertain terms
sometimes letting go
is the strongest thing that you can do
the line simply attributed
to God
(but I’m a firm believer
in holding things
real tight)
Juliet Gelfman-Randazzo lives in Philadelphia, where she runs the reading and open mic series Spit Poetry. She is the author of the poetry chapbook "DUH" (Bullshit Lit) and her work appears or is forthcoming in Joyland, The Offing, Poetry Northwest, The Rumpus, and The Cleveland Review of Books, among others. She can be followed @tall.spy (Instagram) and @tall__spy (Twitter) but she can never be caught.