These three poems by Evan Fleischer invite you to consider the loci of art, desire, and solidarity…
by: Evan Fleischer
Places Where Yo-Yo Ma Has Given A Surprise Cello Concert In Piazza San Marco, with the light of student cigarettes blinking from the rooftops like fireflies. In a Bodega, his bow merrily stabbing funyuns. At CERN, in a vaccine waiting room, with Lil’ Buck on the border of two Loredo’s, drawing maps the way the weather draws maps. Down by the Seine, minutes before dawn, rolling back the blanket of a cielo descubierto. Surrounded by an army of android recreations, Yo-Yo Ma alongside Yo-Yo Ma alongside Yo-Yo Ma, amused at the prospect of proving himself the real. The moon, surrounded by the light of fireflies who have grown too large for this world or any other.
Is It Just Me or Is It Like … we’re in a miniature era of Anti-Folk. Solidarity sings itself in the margins while hate corkscrews itself in the spotlight. A children’s talent show of the worst.
Poetics There’s nothing quite like the offering of a Horny Jail or Horny on Main poem to a stranger. My analogy — like walking up to a bus driver: “Does this look infected?” What version of me is that? I know that — inside my chest — a parrot wrapped in a towel reads a newspaper and listens to the rain. Outside my chest a low bass buzz a small town of big midnight trees waiting for pizza Bigfoot or both. Office buildings love that their employees don’t fuck in the dark, I’ve decided. I sit in this chair, a sleeping candle, asleep, a candle, surrounded by buzzing midnight trees of wasted energy flickering alongside anodyne chorales of classical sweeps, and I find myself wanting us to claim the dark. Everyone else is sliding towards nullity, a void of universe-scattering speed, and I’m saying Come here.
Evan Fleischer is a writer, editor, and teacher. He has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Republic, HAD, Rejection Letters, and numerous other publications.
