Tesla is Born
The sound of a shell at your ear in an expansive void that is the mouth of the universe Lightening across the curve of the eye A crack in the spheres allowing a peek at the undergarments of God And then the earth is revealed by the pounding of rain knives broken bones What is this moment where the sky pulls itself apart at the sutures drops a child on the waiting flower of Croatia
Optica
What does a glass of light look like? Mercury meniscus – blue-hinged casting laziness on your hand What is its taste? Oddly lemon rose – juniper gin cleaning fluid static It flows uphill seeps in the opposite of shadow This flask of it – corked at the hip recedes into memory the second you’ve seen it
Edwin Davis & The Electric Chair
Brown came with a crate. The kind milk bottles condense in. He sat it down. In the center of the room. I had spent the day clearing cobwebs, a rug. I used parts of the crate to make the chair. Stringing the wires, using the Edison diagram The Brown instructions. I shot 1000 volts through Kemmler then again until he burst to flame. The skin around the metal became leather. They would have done better using an axe. I shot volts into a woman. Into the man who shot McKinley. I got to meet J.P. Morgan. Twice. Every time – The smell –
Topsy
flesh is stone – rippling – will not be caged – the neck – frozen at an angle – some degrees off normal – the man smiling broadly his hand on the polished wood handle of a switch – the crowd is not breathing – the children are staring wires from the switch to a frame around the head to shackles on the ankles – the elephant – begins – to bleed – from its ears poisoned strangled electrocuted she falls – you cannot imagine – the amount of heaving skin she refused to cross to death wired where she stood – they had to bring death to her the earthquake of trumpets –
–Michael J. Wilson
Poetry