Cliff Eisner has had his poetry published in Appeal To Reason, City Miner Anthology, Hudson River Anthology, and Yellow Silk, Margin (U.K.). He is the author of the chapbook Running for the hungry (Atticus Press 1983). Cliff is currently at work on a collection of poetry, Taking Leave, and a collection of “flash plays,” The Licking Stone.

Cultural Weekly is proud to premiere these three new poems from Cliff Eisner.

*****

the bus passed an hour ago

we are in the middle of a robbery
and the word HOSTAGE occurs suddenly
like a revolver on the windowsill.
there is nothing to do but freeze.
then they take us to be tied
and pushed into the back room
where we will be lucky
to be found again.

***

the ward

you are singing
for water. the open
corridor
is pierced with light,a
gaping. a wound
grapples your visual
memory. the old woman
who walks the halls
all day all night, her
pacing has picked
the walls up by their ears.
even the clock paces.
by the flowers,
by the window, 5 stories
in the air through
mesh that traps the smallest
insect made enough
to get caught in the wind.
this is the ward
and this is the floor
and these wake me
with needles already
drawing. the sad one sits
down to weep over nothing.
the faraway one
who eats the plants
at windows chanting gibberish
in the painful language
of dream with symbols
of poverty.

water is finally gotten
for you. if the capsules
stick, then how will you sing?

***

the fit at night

the way white peels off
your hips perfectly like skin
how you pivot on your waist
either way to ease them to
the pull of your hands down
to where you stop and you
stop there where my heart
catches its throat with light
and without blinking you draw
me in to press on you with my
kiss

What are you looking for?