"Carnations"

E. A. Hanninen - 2008

This issue of The Centrifugal Eye is dedicated
in loving memory to

      Tom Reninger

                          inside her

inside her.
inside pink Jerusalem.
inside the Ottoman's dream.
inside prophecy and parable.
inside the wet meditation.
inside the puzzle of hidden passages
and narrow streets.
inside the way of Sorrow
and there are 14 shuddering stops.
inside where the chanting Franciscans
raise their voices to her way of love.
inside the Church of the Sepulcher
and the tangle of her dark hair.
inside the walls
where i kneel to kiss her stones.
inside the Noble Sanctuary
and the handprint of the angels
lifts me out from this life.

                      the hothouse love

i walk out into the double dark,
as in your bread and your wine.
the first tabernacle was in your sigh.
the seriousness of your lips.
the buried history of your wrinkles.
the living shame of your throat.
i will carry the broken pieces
of a heart,
the hungry souls of dreamers unfed,
the kingdom of boundaries
that never die.

that’s the rain?
no, i am the rain.
a wet agony without the pangs of weeping.
that’s the blood?
no, i am the blood.
the bud that burst the winter
with the secrets of duplication.
that’s the ice?
no, i am the ice.
the vague joy of retreat by crystal.

i walk out into your memories,
as in your resigned consolations
and their poppy fulfillment.
the impatient movement of petals.
the distraught stamen.
flowers that want no ecstasy at all,
only the choice of calamities.
we're falling short of tenderness,
lined up for illusion like
carnation after carnation
on a yellowed wallpaper.

                  no transfusions possible

here are the ashes of your words
swarming needs that fly
over a maze of coal
(fat red globules, not worth
the trouble of a fire).
how their heat scars my skin
blackens my blood.
you give me house slippers or bombs.
show me the bitterest of breasts.
the accidental gaze.
write your dizzy name in dead letters
all over the last frontier.

i pray not to pray,
make your monster mute.
shock me with your breath.
paint my eyes with tears
and push me out into a world
in love with ghosts.
i won't use the slang of life
won't memorize the scandal
of your silhouetted salvation
or the whim of living.

steal from poets then.
grab their disguised diseases
and shove them
down the front of your
ivory blouse.

Medieval Device, ca. 1400s

Tom Reninger (February 27, 1950 — April 22, 2008) was born in Shreveport, LA and raised in Olean, NY. In his early teens, he was recognized for his writing in a John F. Kennedy Memorial Essay Contest. He later lived in Chicago, IL (his all-time favorite city); in 1977, he was awarded the Poet of the Year by the Chicago Foundation for Literature. After moving to Tampa Bay, FL, Tom held a variety of jobs, but remained, ever, a writer — from scripts to poetry. And he wrote on everything, in longhand, from his favored yellow legal pads to the back of a bookmark. He spent several years at home raising his two daughters, and became an active volunteer in their school. His readings to the classroom children became legendary. With the age of the internet, Tom found a new energy for writing and formed an online group of writing friends.

Tom’s first book, Douceur (Dead End Press, 1999), is now out-of-print; his second and last book is slated for publication in late 2008.