{"id":233,"date":"2018-07-26T02:00:15","date_gmt":"2018-07-26T02:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/?p=233"},"modified":"2018-07-22T02:03:59","modified_gmt":"2018-07-22T02:03:59","slug":"two-poems-by-jeremy-springsteed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/2018\/07\/26\/two-poems-by-jeremy-springsteed\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Poems by Jeremy Springsteed"},"content":{"rendered":"
Jeremy Springsteed is a barista living in Seattle. He was one of the founders of the Breadline Performance Series and is one of the organizers of the Chain Letter Performance Series. His work has been published in Raven Chronicles, Mantis, Make It True- Poetry From Cascadia, The Paragon Press, and forthcoming work in Pidgeonholes and Pageboy.<\/em><\/h6>\n

 <\/p>\n

Our Spreading<\/h3>\n

We left home across ocean.
\nVirginia hills and bootleg routes,
\nhand cart Mormon pilgrims.
\nWe move west and when there is no more west
\nwe fall to the shore drinking ocean to expose more land.
\nWe leave our old gods to the east in search of Zion.
\nWhen Zion is found we leave the valley in search of Shang-rah-la.<\/p>\n

We are sparse like southern Idaho.
\nWe are towering like the Wasatch front.
\nWe are dead fly ridden Great Salt Lake.
\nThere is no upward movement in this clan, only expansion.<\/p>\n

Drink drug depraved dreamers.
\nSilent saints of salt and sky.
\nPoor chicken coop dwellers,
\ncouch surfers, park campers.
\nWanderlust in the veins,
\ndissatisfaction in the DNA.<\/p>\n

We want to be there in our own annihilation.
\nWe open our bodies to offer
\nnerve and bile
\nto the unfeeling and the overfilled.
\nSome drank or drink
\nor would still drink but they\u2019ve gone to the ground.
\nOutcast aunt
\ndrank until she had titanium pins put into her ankle
\neventually lost that foot because she keep
\npassing out in the backyard
\nin the tomatoes,
\nthe hose running everywhere.<\/p>\n

Sometimes we wake up in Vegas
\nwith hangover and regret and nothing
\nbut the shirt on the back, even the car gambled away.
\nSuccessfully being demoted back to private thirteen times
\nfor drinking, bet fixing, insubordination and still put up for promotion again.
\nSight big enough to take in the whole of Pocatello to Walla Wall
\nand never raise a potato from the earth
\nWe marry and marry and marry again
\nand eventually just live with our exes
\nbecause it\u2019s cheaper rent.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How to Leave Things<\/h3>\n

Morning marches on my mattress.
\nI sleep in sheets made of safety pins.
\nThrashing through the night
\nthe sheets open. Dreaming pin cushion.
\nThis is the way we keep house.<\/p>\n

Then there are fever dreams.
\nClouds of mucus tissue fill my ears.
\nScrapping myself from bed
\nto vapor rub.
\nNo one will do this for me now.<\/p>\n

I plastic wrap the whole thing.
\nSleep six inches above the blankets.
\nConstantly curious about DNA
\nand ownership and who looks through my trash.
\nI sleep up here and dust bust every chance I get.<\/p>\n

The mattress knows every inch of me,
\nhas a me shaped depression.
\nThis is why it must go.
\nNo more night-sweat-mares.
\nNo longer a drunken moan.<\/p>\n

No other sleepers
\nfor I am a jealousy sleeper.
\nSet on fire
\nin metro tunnel.
\nThe travelers can taste
\nthe smoke of my sleep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jeremy Springsteed is a barista living in Seattle. He was one of the founders of the Breadline Performance Series and is one of the organizers of the Chain Letter Performance Series. His work has been published in Raven Chronicles, Mantis, Make It True- Poetry From Cascadia, The Paragon Press, and forthcoming work in Pidgeonholes and … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa867U-3L","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":234,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions\/234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}