Recede Again
by Mohamad Said Bazzi
(February, 2021)
1 /
Dynamite
Was a wonderful expression
That meant wonderful
Discontinued
By Committee Decision
Too volatile
For a looming future
Too peculiar
For simpler horizons
Peculiar meant queer
And odd meant peculiar
All too familiar
Now odd is but a mundane reminder
Of numerical asymmetry
Or the broken mid-step
That hampers the delight
Of acquiescence
Dynamite words
That came to be sacrificed
To the glow of correction
2 /
One of my favorite gifts from God
Is when He wakes me
At the oddest, most peculiar
Hours preceding daylight
To lay in bed in solitude
Contorted
Yet still
As a mantis
Confronted
With the ceiling of my thoughts
And what lays beyond them
Pondering a frightened world
Shunning the reminders
Of a year yet to come
3 /
At first, the ceiling is deep in its blackness
Like an Ivory Black, or a Mars
Lovely in its stillness
Until my eyes adjust to a bit of Prussian,
A bit of Ultramarine, blues emerging From the periphery of the ceiling’s
Lateral expanse
In the ceiling middle, a quiet collision
Hints of Ochres and Umbers
And that most unfashionable of browns,
Vandyke, in the parts I ignore
I wheeze, wring, and wrench in bed
But only in smaller increments
And diameters
So as not to disturb the one next to me
Who, unlike me, safeguards her dreams
And resents being awoken
4 /
I served at the lotto machine
Up in Hamtramck
For half a shift Friday eve
After a day of readying my classroom
For my returning students
The older black men and women
Who entrust me with their saved
Lists of numbers
Scribed on the backs of envelopes
Or pieces of neatly-torn lined paper,
Worn at the edges,
Have beautiful handwriting
I confess this to them
And admire to myself
Their threes and fives
That curl at the bottom turn
More elegant than any fancy double u
Found in any independence declaration
I rest my aching eyes
On a procession of numerals
Graphite etched deep into the fibers
Of a saved and resaved shred of paper
A micromoment of sojourn
For my tired vision
From the fast pace of number punching
4 digit, straight,
3 digit, wheel,
box, 50/50
5 /
My two older children
Who spent their earliest years
in Detroit Public Schools
Were taught their cursive writing
My youngest child who did not, was not
For her, I bring home from Hamtramck
A small yellow bag of “Swedish Fish"
I pour one into my open hand
And pop it into my mouth and declare
That it tastes more Norwegian
Than Swedish
She stares at me
Odd, Peculiar, Queer
She must think,
But in other words
6 /
American politics is more and more
Openly extortionist
The spiraling towards
A mass hoarding of fears
The ambitious grab for them
A tug of war for them
Back and forth
And more intensely each time
Traced back to
Reagan, Johnson, Jackson,
Elizabeth, Caligula
Names that pertain only to themselves
7 /
There are wars that we are not
Made aware of
A war for the sugars of industries
A war for the oils of industries
Wars for the drops of water
And pieces of sky
Of this world
What ARE dry goods?
You and that Daimler
Were MADE for each other, Stevens
One hears whispered rumors
That the theme song to "Cheers"
Was written in J Edgar Hoover’s office
Or somewhere thereabouts
Thereabouts, there's a peculiar word
Words and people, many are peculiar
Perhaps everyone is, in some way
But that would mean that no one is
Simply put, the extent of your limbs
Is as far as you can reach
As you reach for whatever is beyond
The farthest fringes