Raphael Moser
Cherry Oh Baby
You revealed your exit strategy
Scratched air
Laertes,
Thunder moves through the hideous refractions
Lost charms stripped
Overcast like a narrative
Or corrugated
The shoreline vacuous and principled
Looped around the vagaries
Sensible hours forage
Finally,
Clinical expressions
Behind the vault of ease
––––
In Praise of the Salt Opera
Armed by solitude, she opens the world at the earliest
and steps into the geography of steel and rubber. Two burly boys
pull up, howling composure in the northwest quadrant. Four strips
of leather are stationed near their last descent. Tense soles lock the field.
A rufous band outlines the cube which contains this roiling mass.
The mayhem of chatter is alchemized by each marshy grunt, drum, bass.
The sentinel drives the engine. To the left and to the right, the burden of man
is re-enacted by each successive attempt to become upright.
Gnawing on a piece of meat, on her hind legs, she examined the sinewy brew.
She missed the dead lift. The comprehensive grip always took the edge off.
A bouquet of scars collected at breastbone, knee joint. Insignificant injuries
spanned the length of her body. Substitutions were made. They all witnessed
the repetition. The snarl of difference deftly suffocating faster. Increased repetition.
To ring out each pore, each nerve, where the poison pooled. To arrive at the place
of water ravaging the throat.
––––
Raphael Moser’s poetry has appeared in journals including Mad Hatter’s Review, swifts & slows, and The Georgia Review. She was a regular contributor to the poetry blog October Babies and has performed original poetry and music in venues in NYC and Long Island. She has been awarded residency grants from SLS Concordia College, and the Vermont Studio Center. Publication of her manuscript Blindly Swept Frankly is forthcoming by Red Glass Books. Her passion for the arts has led to her founding the Raphael Moser Gallery which is dedicated to supporting and exhibiting contemporary art and performance.