a poem by cynthia atkins

Hillsides


         after Philip Guston, Untitled, ink and acrylic, 1980


The store clerk was gone in ten seconds
after the 30 rounds—blood spattered on
the welcome mat, soda coolers, cash register.
From the manhole in the studio, Brian Williams’ voice
seeds my living room—(Brian, who I know so well
but have never met—).  The blood so thick
in that storefront it makes me think
about brushstrokes piled in a heap
like draped  klansmen—Then I see
detainees at Abu Grahib, fowled
in brown paper bags.  The silver screws
and gawky nails that turn to fists,
if you stare long enough
at the painting—Guston’s cartoon
versions haunting all my worst fears.
Every night, The News stock-piles
in my living room. The pink rubble
and gray maw of Japan floating off
falling rocks, buildings dislimned.
White clouds that aren’t clouds at all.
Dust flaring off the TV from muddied
combat boots, that have brazed and combed
hillsides in the folly, fog and boredom of war.
In the Sabbath light, the Guston’s hills
become the torah scrolls that my son
will read from, holding the sweat
of thousands before him—All their tolls
that remind us of what is worth keeping,
what we take at a moment’s notice—
The hand of a loved one,
the prayers in the hills.
                               




"Hillsides" originally appeared in The Del Sol Review, Winter 2012 #18




Cynthia Atkins' poems have appeared widely in journals such as  Alaska Quarterly Review, American Letters & Commentary, BOMB, Caketrain, Clementine, Cultural Weekly, Del Sol Review, Denver Quarterly, Harpur Palate, The Journal, Le Zaporogue, North American Review, Tampa Review, Valparaiso Review, and Verse Daily, among many others.  She is the author of Psyche's Weathers and most recently, In The Event of Full Disclosure. (July 2013, Wordtech). Atkins poems were nominated for a 2013 and 2014 Pushcart Prize.  She was recently interviewed about her new book on the Huffington Post and Bill and Dave's Cocktail Hour.  She holds residencies from the VCCA and Breadloaf Writer’s Conference and is currently an assistant professor of English at Virginia Western Community College. She lives in Rockbridge County, VA on the Maury River, with artist Phillip Welch and their family.  More info at her website of author page: www.cynthiaatkins.com and on Facebook.

clementine!

Hello dreamers.  I hope you will check out the latest Clementine -- an online poetry journal -- that I edited.

There you will find wonderful and varied poems by Philip Arnold, Cynthia Atkins, Andrea Janov, Sarah Layden, Amy Locklin, Helen Losse, Daniel Romo, Adam Soldofsky, and Megan Volpert.

It also features tenderly macabre artwork by Bats Langley (who recently did the Moonrise Kingdom-inspired illustration above).

Happy reading!

two poems by cynthia atkins

Face Book

It should come as no shock, our faces
as books, our faces the envy of
broken down clocks—Right-brain, left brain—
          Let us be plugged in
at every turn, in every orifice.
This is our body! This is our office!
          Staple every button-hole
that is latchkey and sad. Credentials culled,
there’s no turning back now.
We’re here to be cut and pasted.
Prepare us to be a billboard
          blessed by the waste
of a flightless bird. All the toasters lost
the tender prints left from a lover’s
scorched breakfast. (Too much work?)
So stack our shelves with a library
          of perfect smiles.
Salacious minds need routine, packaged
as shiny shrink-wrapped trinkets.
Screens screaming for sex kittens
and war porn—takes the place
          of breakfast and love?
Honk if you’re lonely and your wardrobe
resembles a caption, wearing white
in winter—such poor taste!
          Don’t fret, an underling
took the place of your former self.
Pupils plaited and distal, the story
and the people got ransacked out—
exchanged for a remote page
          of faceless doubt.








Letter to Metaphor


Soundless as a disc on a dot of snow
   -Emily Dickinson


It goes without saying, there’s something
for everyone. Remember the slut
of the multi-purpose room,
         legs spread and bearing
the burden for everyone—?
         Lipstick put on
for all the wrong reasons,
and all dolled-up for what
the bed of roses stole.
         A note was penned
by simile’s hand—your first cousin
allergic at the ersatz country house,
flirting with images and glyphs.
         Ask for subtlety, you’ll get
a mixed strip-tease every time.
No consequence, no punishment,
like when you helped write
         cheat notes on the inside
of my hand—the same naked hand
that braided hair, slipped off a coat—
traded in sex for a prayer.




-"Face Book" originally appeared in BigCity Lit, Fall 2010.

-"Letter to Metaphor" originally apeared in The Broome Review, Spring 2011


Cynthia Atkins received an MFA from Columbia University’s School of the Arts. Her first collection of poems, Psyche’s Weathers (Wordtech, 2007) was recently featured on Verse Daily, and reviewed in Poets' Quarterly, Winter 2011. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in many journals including, American Letters & Commentary, BOMB, The Broome Review, Caketrain, Cold Mountain Review, Denver Quarterly, Harpur Palate, Inertia, The Journal, New York Quarterly, Seneca Review, Sou’Wester, and Valparaiso Review, and was nominated for a 2011 Pushcart Prize. Atkins teaches creative writing and literature, most recently, at Roanoke College, and worked formerly as the assistant director for the Poetry Society of America in NYC. She now resides on the Maury River of Rockbridge County, VA with her family.