Six Poems

by Andreas Felps

Convictions

When I don’t know what to believe, I remember I’ve believed in: a life-long career in doubting. A muddy road of angel wings. Reality's dementia. God's lost hearing aids. The language of my dead Opa's eyebrows. A wizard's staff as short as a finger. A scream so deep it never surfaces. The diving board on the lip of the void. Living on crosses. Hope's heavy tradition. The unheard applause. The light's roughhousing. Sad displays of happiness. A hungry plate. A seam's muscly forearms. The moon's reflection on a shoulder. The colosseum of a teardrop. The important moment right before a spark. The infinite enshrined in the finite. A trail of crumbs and being the thing that crumbled. Putting together feet like mismatched socks, then taking turns stepping into the future. Grief’s ancient stutter. A noose inviting a neck to hang. The headlock that a head is. A bird breaking its beak trying to crack a mountain open. The choking-hazard of regret. The lengths I've gone to not be gone. The self as an extinction level event. Dislocated thoughts. Faith's bandage losing its adhesive. An umbrella throwing up all its arms in defeat during a storm. My goodness you, whoever you are. Being nowhere near heaven yet rattling its gates.

History

Clouds baptize in the name

of their emptying, thought the gardener.

When I say flesh, I think of rotten

instead of home, thought the sinner.

Along the valley of death,

breath is still flowering miles

beyond our feet, thought the optimist.

In what mouth has the devil’s tongue

not been? thought the nihilist.

Restless with the world,
love cannot rest, thought the peacemaker.

God’s a smudge on the eraser

of our eyes, thought the atheist.

Praise is present in the work of hands,

thought the crucified carpenter.

I once was buried, but now I’m soil,

thought the dead.

The sun’s still lonely despite all the things

its brilliance touches, thought the poet.

My middle name is my father’s name.

His anger’s nestled at my core,

thought the son.

Unsure bones hold my body up

like a lantern, thought the daughter.

People try to be kind, but they color

outside the lines, thought the skeptic.

For what is the anatomy of the beloved,

but you and I, I and another,

thought the neighbor.

Existential Side Effects

May include, but are not limited to: having feet like banana peels. Crystal-clear confusion. Bringing light to where light feels mistaken, and a sky injected with gods like dermal fillers. Depression that heckles. Skulls like headlocks. Having a litter of hearts each day, and staying friends with negative adjectives. Living off the pocket money of humor, and holding your breath when you speak. Various severities of prolonged perseverance, and a pusillanimous pulse. Handling your hands wrong. Communing with loneliness. Being handed sorrow in bulk. Maps tearing off their clothing. Grief's crowded inflection and eyes opening like defective parachutes. Silence taking up the vow of you and continuing to smile long after your face is gone. Staring out of windows that are no longer there. Hauling a cool breeze in your mouth for sweaty decades. Having a nightlight plugged inside your head you never grow out of, and boxing heavyweight consequences. A glass drops, but you shatter, and being ruined into life.

An Ode to My Throat

It’s brought forth word after broken word
to my ravenous mouth, like receiving the Eucharist
in reverse. How it’s ushered prayers along
its road to help me plant landmines at god's feet
so heaven might be blasted to smithereens
and have no other place to be but here.
How it's been a vessel to silences so heavy
my Adam's apple has had to keep adjusting
the awkward weight back onto its shoulders.
It's lost my voice and found it again. It's given
birth to whispers, and what whispers grow into
when they swallow too much of the world's
disappointment. It knows how it feels to be sore
and soothed. How it's choked on the past                  
like vomit and cleared itself of a plague of frogs.
How it continuously makes room for another breath.
It's housed the beginning of every hello
and the ending of every goodbye,
and I adore how sensitive it is to a kiss.
My throat comes from a long line of singing
from where it's been slit.

Meet

Some mornings I wake up questioning

the billions of ways I haven’t met the world yet,

and so I must ask you:

Does your tongue walk all over
itself to map its edges?

Have you seen the leaves that fall first
preparing a bed for the one that falls

last?

How does this day fit into the shoes
of your lifespan?

Can bad timing still be good?

Did you know that even if you aren’t singing,
your silence is still a part of the song?

Have you seen the piano chords
that wince as they’re struck?

Have you watched the rain type
parables upon a windowpane?

What translation of skin are you?

Are your scars feeling insecure
because healing isn’t always pretty?

Have you cooked feasts of scraps,
scrapes, and small-scale salvations?

Have you butchered your life

and survived the slaughter?

Do you believe nothing is eternal,
yet everything touches it?

The unquenched enigma between

our toes and galaxies, where smoke

disrobes for the sky—

Will I meet you where I know

we cannot meet?

When Asked Why I’m Still Single

at 34 and have never been married, or even close to engaged, what’s the best way to respond? Should I say: I can’t tie the knot because I’m already tangled in the mess my fingers have made of touch, or how the butterflies in my stomach are known for their crash landings? Should I say: I have high standards, but I’m afraid of heights, or how I’ve been burnt in ways fire hasn’t discovered? I could describe how many times I’ve asked myself for a divorce and the days in which I’ve broken up with the future and how many times a week I’m intimate with self-disgust. So, fuck, here’s a fun fact: When anyone’s in awe of a clear night saturated with moonlight, it will never appear as luminous to me, no matter how much I tinker with the brightness settings of my eyes. Here’s another: I already received a vasectomy because I fully believe there shouldn’t be another me, and I’ve impregnated enough people with hauntings. Should I come with a warning sign? Caution: The warmth between my big, tatted arms is combustible. I could articulate my disdain for online dating—the way we’re exposed to highly processed identities and placed on endless conveyor belts, always next in line to be checked by quality control, when upon closer inspection, whose heart isn’t littered with dents? And of course, at some point, I’ll say the wrong thing—whether it’s in a week or a month or a year—because all humans are prone to pulling the pin from verbal grenades. Maybe I’ll just say: My love rolls out a red carpet of glass shards, but I’ll clean your precious feet and wrap your wounds in the softness of quivering lips. I can be awful. I can be awfully kind. I’m sorry, but can I start over?

BIO: Andreas Fleps is a poet/writer based in the suburbs of Chicago. He studied theology and philosophy at Dominican University, and his debut collection of poems entitled Well into the Night (via Energion Publications) was released at the end of 2020. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in publications such as Marathon Literary Review, The Rappahannock Review, Waxing & Waning, The Razor, and the award-winning anthology Glissando!, among others. He translates teardrops.